Avatar
by Cyberwraith9
Summary: Marvel at the Titans' shining moments and darkest hours as one of their own undergoes a startling transformation.
1. Identity

**A brief note from your author:**  
This might appear familiar to some of you. To others, this story seems brand new. That's because Avatar began and summarily ended almost/over a year ago. I pulled the story for...well, reasons that I've come to reconsider (thanks to the inquiries from some dedicated fans whose appreciation I need to start living up to). In any case, I'm bringing the story back in relatively the same shape it was originally published in. To my new readers: welcome! To my old readers: welcome back!

Avatar began as a single, ludicrously simple-minded concept: what would happen if Robin got super powers? Admittedly, I wish I had alterior motives for starting the story, but in reality, that's about all I wanted to see happen. Lucky for me, the story took on a life of its own, and grew into something even I had a hard time imagining. There are subplots that came into being along the way that I have yet to find conclusions for, so just about everything you read in the story is going to be as exciting at its conclusion for me as it is for you (I hope).

The updates will be fairly brisk in the beginning, as I have a number of chapers backlogged from the story's inception. After that, it's my usual game of waiting, for which I apologize but cannot yet renegotiate. So sit back, relax, and enjoy some of the oddest Titans fiction to ever hit the net. If you like what you see, tell a friend. If you don't like the story, tell someone you don't like, just to upset them. And always remember...

The best is yet to come.

Cyberwraith9  
Ghost of the Net

* * *

_All-Purpose Disclaimer_

Teen Titans is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Cartoon Network Inc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit and purely for entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, not to be reproduced without prior consent. Additional information used in creating Teen Titans: Avatar courtesy of Titans Tower Online.

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

by Cyberwraith Nine

* * *

_Prologue: Identity_

Every morning Tim Drake ceased to be, and every night he was reborn.

It was a simple process for Robin to do away with his alter ego. He didn't need grappling lines, or birdarangs, or electro disks, or any of his other gadgets to rid himself of the young teen from Gotham City. There was no magical change, no illusion or dark spell involved. All it took was a mask, and the right frame of mind.

Tim stood in his room, preparing himself for the new day. He looked at himself in the mirror, examining his uniform in the pale light the room's only bulb offered. Green tights and red armor clung to his form, perfectly symmetrical save for the stylized R insignia on his left breast. A black and gold cape flowed from his shoulders, soft as silk but stronger than steel. It was a most un-Tim-like costume, but that wasn't a problem; he held the final piece in his hand that would complete the transformation. Though small and seemingly insignificant, the component spelled the end of Tim Drake each time he placed it on his face.

The black domino mask rested lifelessly in his palm. He cradled the space-age fabric carefully, staring down at its white, soulless lenses with unusual consideration. Though he had only been Robin for less than half a decade, the training ran deep. His mentor's words were drilled into his head;

_When you put the mask on_, the old man had lectured him his first night, _You die. A new being rises in your place. It isn't you. It isn't even human. When you put that mask on, you become Robin. You have to; to do anything else means you're just playing make-believe games, and games will get you and innocent people killed._

"Strong words, Bruce," Tim muttered, clutching the mask in his fist. He wasn't sure why the concept of his identity was such an important one this morning. He had never questioned it before. _Then again,_ he mused, glancing back at a small metal object on his desk, _I suppose it's more of an issue today._

A gentle knock echoed from his door, breaking his thoughts. "Robin?" a soft and very welcome voice called from the hallway. Though it was muffled, he would recognize that uncertain yet purely innocent tone anywhere and anytime. It always seemed to cut straight through his defenses. "May I come in?"

Tim answered hastily, "Just a second, Star."

All of his doubts and stray thoughts were swept aside in a single motion as he brought the mask to his face. The high-tech fibers adhered effortlessly to his skin, bonding in an instant. Flexible lenses sunk into his sockets, and would shrink and expand with his brows to allow him a full range of expression. It offered him total visibility without hindrance of any kind, and would only come off when given the proper electrical impulse from his own gloves. More importantly, though, it banished a weak-minded teenager and brought forth the leader of the Titans.

The ritual complete, he sat down at his desk and pretended to be busy with something. "C'mon in, Star." Robin called back.

The door parted, allowing a being of unparalleled purity and beauty to brighten Robin's dour, darkened domicile. The alien princess Koriand'r, formerly of Tamaran, entered his room with preternatural grace and quite a bit of hesitation. Her green eyes wavered about the walls of the room, each one covered in so many newspaper clippings, graphs, charts and photos that the original color of the space was a mystery.

"Good morning, Robin!" Starfire greeted the back of Robin's head with her perfect smile. Though she was (as always) overjoyed to see him, she remained a respectful distance away. She knew better than any of the Titans that Robin's room was to him what the fabled Batcave was to his mentor. It was Robin's element, and each of them had learned the hard way that to disturb Robin in his element was a grievous mistake indeed.

As if to prove her convictions correct, Robin barely afforded her a grunt as he concentrated on his deskwork. "Morning," he muttered.

Puzzled, Starfire approached him cautiously. "Um…Beast Boy told me you wished to see me." Though she was loathe to disturb him, she could tell he was acting stranger than usual; colder, more distant. He did not seem to be the boy who had shown her so much patience, kindness and unconditional friendship since her arrival on the planet.

"That's right." he grunted again.

She blinked at the frosty reception. "Have…I done something wrong, Robin?" she asked meekly.

Robin swiveled dramatically in his chair, lacing his fingers together as he turned to face her. "In a manner of speaking," he replied coolly. Leaning forward, one featureless white eye grew larger as he examined her nervous form. "Do you remember when we all went into town last week?"

Starfire's features fell immediately as realization hit her hard. "Oh…yes. You are referring to the 'unpleasantness' that ensued in the mall's food court."

He nodded, also recalling the pair of uncouth, slovenly teens that had tried their luck with the gorgeous alien, and then berated her after being shot down. "That's right," he said. His hand reached lazily to his desktop, scooping up the small metal object he had been fiddling with earlier and twirling it between his gloved fingers. "You remember what the guys called you, don't you?" he asked as he rose to his feet.

"Yes," she said again, growing red about the cheeks. "They called me 'Sherbet Skin,' as well as several less-wholesome names." She fidgeted uncomfortably as her green eyes probed his face, wondering why he was bringing this up now. As an afterthought, she added, "I do not believe the mall security people appreciated having to cut them down after you hung them from the ceiling."

"Not the point," he said quickly. Heavy, metal footsteps rang out as his boots carried him across the room. He still toyed with the tiny band of metal, though his eyes never left her worried face. "The point is, this isn't the first time your appearance has drawn unwanted attention."

"It is all right," Starfire fibbed good-naturedly. "I do not mind others ridiculing me for my unusual appearance, so long as I am accepted here by my friends." Her voice quivered as, after a brief hesitation, she asked, "You do not think I am freakish, do you, Robin?"

"You 'do' stand out in public, Star." Robin reminded her. He clutched the band decisively as he at last reached her position in the center of the room. The cold quality of his voice frightened her just a little. "It may not be so harmless in the future. After the White Martian incident, people might get a little jumpy around aliens. They might try to hurt you, or worse-"

"Oh please Robin!" cried the panicked alien as she rushed forward. Starfire grasped at Robin's shoulders, feeling a sharp terror welling up in her breast. Despite the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes, Robin's demeanor remained static and stoic. "Do not send me away, or lock me in the Tower! I could not stand to be incarcerated so, and-"

He held up a single hand to silence her. As she quieted, she saw the strange metallic band hanging from a single finger in front of her face. Up close, she could now identify it as a standard Earth-style chronometer, a 'watch'. It was thin and appeared delicate, most likely designed for the female of the species.

"Put this on." he told her in a commanding tone.

She did so, sniffling pathetically as she strapped the cool band onto her wrist. Once it was in place, Robin reached over and pressed a small, silver button set on one side of the device. A brief tingle jumped over her skin, then vanished as abruptly as it had come. Rubbing the mild itch from her arms, she asked, "What was that?"

Robin looked her up and down, examining her. He seemed to nod in satisfaction, and Star thought she saw a ghost of a smile haunt his lips. He grasped her arms gently, turning her to his full-length mirror. "See for yourself."

She rotated obediently, already formulating a question. The words died on her lips as her jaw hung open upon first sight of her reflection. There, in the mirror, was a stranger staring back at her…a stranger with a human face. The reflection had her vibrant red hair and lavender outfit, and appeared similarly proportioned to her.

However, there were many key differences. Though the irises of her reflection were green, the rest of her eyes were now a milky white. The soft orange skin tone was now a dainty peach, reddened at the cheeks by her sheer shock. Each eyebrow now stretched across her entire eye, the same brilliant color as her ginger hair.

Starfire at last found enough of her voice to breathe a single word. "How…?" Her hand reached out shakily, touching the surface of the mirror as if to grasp at her own likeness. She noted in even greater amazement that her reflection spoke the truth; the skin on her arm had changed.

Robin at last broke into a smile. He stood behind her, placing an arm on her shoulder. "I'm glad you aren't angry," he admitted sheepishly. "Vic thought you might not take it so well"

"Cyborg?" she asked distantly, too enraptured by the new her to pay close attention.

"Sure. Who do you think built it?" He tapped the watch, and her façade flickered for an instant. "I told him he should be the one to give it to you, but he said since it was my idea…" he shrugged, secretly grateful that Victor had given him the opportunity.

Starfire turned back to him, this time with tears of joy. "I love it!" she exclaimed. "But how...?"

"It's a holoprojector." Robin explained. "It emits a pattern of light over your skin. That's why your clothes are still the same. I, uh, asked Cy to keep as much of you just the way you are." He looked away, slightly abashed. Suddenly, his fingers snapped, and he plucked a small card from his work table. "Oh, I took the liberty of making this, too. You probably won't need it, but you never know..."

Starfire took the card and examined it briefly. It was a California ID card which featured her humanesque image. To the left was her relative Earth age, as well as a name. "Kory Anders…Oh!" Starfire's smile grew wider. "Very clever."

"So…you really like it?" Robin asked warily.

Starfire grabbed him up in a bone-crunching hug. "I love it! Thank you, oh thank you Robin!" She released him at last, giving him a chance to regain his breath as she turned back to study herself in his mirror. Starfire's heart soared at the wonderful gift bestowed unto her. "Raven has agreed to go to the mall with me tomorrow! I will gladly wear your gift."

She heard Robin clear his throat, and turned away from her doppelganger. His features had become deathly serious once more. "There's just one condition," he said ominously.

Curiosity returned at once to her demeanor. "What is it?" she asked, fearful of anything that could cause her to lose the wonderful disguise.

Once again, the Boy Wonder couldn't keep up his stony appearances in her presence. He reached over, deactivating the holo-watch and returning Starfire to her true self. Together, they looked at the young alien girl's image in his mirror. He took a chance, and grasped her by the waist as he laid his head upon her shoulder. "You can't ever wear it while you're in the tower." he told her, drinking in her beauty.

Starfire secretly shivered at his touch, and tried to keep her voice level. "Why? Will the device malfunction?"

"Because your friends like you for who you are." he told her, giving her a small squeeze. "You should never have to hide who you are around us. Ever."

She nodded, rubbing the metal band affectionately as Robin released her from his embrace. "Thank you, Robin." she said again.  
Then, as she looked back at the Titan's commander, a thought came to her. She studied his uniform intently, lingering on the mysterious mask that covered his eyes. In all the time they had been friends, she had never seen the face existing behind his mask. He had never taken it off in front of any of them, even her. "But Robin," she pointed out, "You have always hidden who you are."

Robin paused at the revelation, tilting his head as Starfire looked to him in confusion. He had clarified many things to her in the past, but this explanation was going to be tricky. "It's…not the same, Star."

Starfire only grew more puzzled. "I do not understand," she admitted. The ID card he had given her returned to her hand, and she held it up to illustrate her point. "On this world I have many names; Starfire, Kory Anders…yet I am always the same person. Koriand'r. It is who I am." She emphasized by tapping the card to her chest. "Is it not the same with you."

"Not exactly." Robin struggled for the right words. He plopped himself back down in his desk chair, propping an ankle on his knee as he delved into deeper thought. "See, when I'm in this uniform, I'm Robin. There's nothing else. No one's 'underneath'," he explained, making quote marks with his fingers.

"That is…different." Star quirked an eyebrow in confusion.

A slight chuckle escaped his throat. "Star, I think that's about the nicest anyone's ever put it." He couldn't help but smirk; Starfire's naïveté was always so refreshing. It made him see the world in a whole new way. Sometimes he even had to give himself a good examination to answer her bizarre questions.

"People have pasts," Starfire pressed, stepping closer. "Yet I know little of yours; you were trained by 'The Batman', and I know you were not the first to bear the name of Robin."

He smiled again, nodding twice. "Right on both accounts, Kori. But like I said, it's different with me." At her enduring bewilderment, he continued patiently, "Try to understand: When I wear this mask, I'm not hiding who I am. I _am_ Robin."

"But why?" insisted Starfire. "Why can you not be the person you truly are."

"Because the person I used to be isn't a hero…and he certainly isn't Titan material." Robin shrugged, recalling his life before Bruce Wayne had flipped it upside down. Tim Drake had been smart, resourceful, and cunning, but he was no superhero. It took a mask and an eccentric millionaire to turn him into that. "In our line of work, someone like him wouldn't last a New York minute."

This only confused her more. "Time is…different in New York?"

He suppressed another smile as he rose from his chair. "The point is," he said quickly, "I've never hid who I am from you guys. I'm Robin." He clapped her on the shoulder, rubbing it affectionately as she stared at him in open mystification. "Anything I was before I became Robin is totally irrelevant. Now c'mon," he encouraged her, making for the door, "Let's show everyone your new 'outfit."

The young Tamaranian girl sighed in defeat. "I am afraid I still do not understand."

"It's no big deal," he remarked as he exited his own room. "Besides, I can't think of anybody who'd want to know the old me anyhow."

Starfire's shoulders sagged as her fellow Titans and best friend left the room. A wave of miserable despair seeped into her spirit as her hand absently brushed her new, cherished gift on her wrist. If she was not ashamed to wear such a device in public, why would Robin refuse to reveal his true self to the rest of them?

"I would." she answered his rhetorical remark in a soft murmur to an empty room.

**To Be Continued **


	2. Robin: Masks

_All-Purpose Disclaimer_

**Teen Titans** is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Cartoon Network Inc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit and purely for entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, not to be reproduced without prior consent. Additional information used in creating **Teen Titans: Avatar** courtesy of Titans Tower Online.

* * *

_The Boring Author Part_

Having been a writer for several years now, with the desire to become a professional wordsmith in the worst way, I have several people I owe quite a bit to, whether they realize it or not. And so, we'll take a moment before the story starts to see if we can't spread the blame a little.

To my family, who continues to support me despite my obvious lack of talent or ambition.

To Ace Sanchez, who inspired me to become a fanfiction writer.

To Peter David, who's taught me nearly everything I know about writing without ever having met me.

To Ernest Hemingway, who's taught me nearly as much about writing through example of how not to write (or live, for that matter).

To Classic Cowboy, who inspired me to branch out into different channels of fanfiction.

And to Legend Maker, whose amazing works have moved me to write a Titans fic of my own, and who will hopefully forgive me for borrowing her chaptering method. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, after all.

* * *

_Chronological Doo-Whoppy_

The events of this story take place shortly following the events of the Season Two episode "Winner Take All". Continuity diverges from there. This work attempts to reconcile continuity from the comics, the DC Animated Universe, and the divergent continuity of the Teen Titans cartoon. Please also note that in doing so I am utilizing Tim Drake as Robin, and not Dick Grayson (who, as clues in later episodes have suggested, is the Robin of that Titans team). And now, with no further ado...

* * *

'_I'm bored,_' Jaxx muttered out of his lower mouth.

Rauaun rolled his middle eye toward the gunmetal gray plating of the corridor ceiling in a gesture of impatience. '_You've already said that, brixtal._' he snapped in irritation from his upper mouth while clicking his tongues with his lower mouth.

Jaxx glanced down either direction of the long corridor to ensure that there were no officers in range of his voice. It wouldn't do to have one of the starcruiser's ranking officers hear him whining in boredom. He needn't have worried, though; the only things of interest on this depressingly dull assignment were himself, Rauaun, and the two-metrix thick airtight hatch sealed behind them. Metal rapped against metal as he tapped the butt of his riflor staff on the deck plating. '_Well, I am!_' he insisted.

'_We're guarding the most dangerous creature in the galaxy until we find a black hole to chuck him into,_' Rauaun shot back. '_How much more excitement do you need?_'

His partner's tentacles wobbled with frustration as he blew impatient breaths from both of his mouths. '_But he hasn't done anything!_' complained Jaxx. He pounded his riflor against the deck again. '_He's been quiet for the entire trip._'

'_And you're complaining?_' Now all three of Rauaun's eyes rolled upwards. So great was his irritation that the eyes kept rolling until they came full circle to once again glare at Jaxx. '_You really are a flubnukt._'

'_Don't give me that! You saw the footage of the Gralb VI massacre. Don't tell me you aren't aching for a piece of that ptaq._'

'_No. And I intend to keep it that way, right up until we launch him out of the torpedo tube._' Rauaun assured his impetuous partner.

'_Takflub!_' Suddenly, Jaxx's eyes grew mischievous. Taking his weapon in tentacle, he began tapping, then banging, on the thick hatch. '_Hey! Hey you!_'

Rauaun whipped a tentacle out and wrapped it around the barrel of Jaxx's riflor. '_Are you FLAKKED?_' he hissed with his lower mouth. His higher jaws was too busy grinding needle teeth together.

Both of Jaxx's mouths pulled back into smiles. '_Oh, come on,_' he scoffed with a shimmy of his eye stalks. '_Don't tell me you don't want to at least see him._'

A small, guilty ember of curiosity burned within Rauaun's chagrin as he realized Jaxx was right; he did want to see the prisoner. But his better judgment was screaming a losing battle for rationality with his young partner. '_We shouldn't-_'

'_Pafnask! It'll just be a second. Besides,_' Jaxx added as he reached for the genetic scanner that would open the door, '_He's already restrained. What's the worst that could happen?_'

The last of Rauaun's resistance vanished as Jaxx's tentacle pressed decisively on the scan pad. In place of the niggling feeling arose a strong foreboding mixed with excitement as the armored hatch obediently slid to one side. With nothing left to oppose him, Jaxx slithered through the door, followed closely by Rauaun.

The cell was a twenty-by-twenty metrix room, barely large enough to contain all of the promethium restraints which held the tiny prisoner at bay. It was a small, sickly Arthax, a vaguely canine quadruped frequently kept as pets on the Homeworld. This one was all but cocooned in the nigh-unbreakable metal, with an oversized muzzle on its pathetic little snout and large metallic bars strapped over the chain swaths. Through the metal restraints, both guards noticed a misshapen lump on the poor creature's chest, almost bursting out of its paper-thin skin and tattered, patchy fur.

Rauaun distantly heard Jaxx's contemptuous snickering as he gazed at the mass murderer in horror. '_How do you like this form, Avatar?_' he jibed, tapping his riflor against the chain strung up closest to him. The vibrations clearly irritated the caged creature as it squirmed against its bonds. '_Not quite so high and mighty now, are you?_'

'_Jaxx,_' Rauaun's fear had once again asserted itself. '_Don't heckle the psychotic maniac._' That sense of foreboding he had experienced earlier had intensified upon sight of the creature. Staring into its black, soulless eye was almost more than he could stand.

The laughter in Jaxx's gravelly voice grew as the sickly little Arthax began to quiver. '_Look,_' he bellowed with both mouths, '_He's afraid-_'

A sharp crack rang out and promethium went flying every which way as the Arthax shook the chains from his body in one clean jerk. Jaxx's guffaws turned to screams as several of the shards burrowed into his tentacle, forcing the riflor from his grasp. Rauaun echoed his friend's shriek when one of the shards sliced his left eye clean off its stalk. Ichor began oozing from the wound as he witnessed with his remaining eyes the now-free creature leap forward.

The Arthax's eye glowed brilliantly with crimson light, a glow which instantly focused into a solid, pencil-thin beam that swept across the room. Rauaun had sense enough to duck in time. Jaxx did not. Jaxx's silenced head hit the deck hard, followed a moment later by his lifeless body, both spilling dark ichor onto the tidy metal plating.

Desperate and blinded by pain, Rauaun crawled across the floor. The panic button set halfway up the wall loomed just out of his tentacle's reach. With one touch, the button would send a signal to the bridge, warning the crew and saving the ship. He would still die, but at least it wouldn't be for naught.

His top mouth babbled as its lower twin gurgled the life-giving, lime-colored liquid that pumped out of his wounds. He could hear claws scraping against metal behind him, and didn't dare look back. Instead, he focused everything he had on that big, shiny red button just a few milimetrixes away. '_The Avatar is...has..._'

Rauaun never made it to the button.

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith Nine_

* * *

**Robin**: _Masks_

Tara Markov took a deep breath as she entered a large circle hastily painted on the sandy dirt. The scents of the earth filled her lungs as her fists clenched and unclenched unconsciously in her nervousness. She could feel the gentle pulse of the topsoil beneath her boots, and below that, the shelf of rock their island sat on shifting too gently for anyone but her to tell. Well beyond that, the ebb and flow of magma far below the surface gave her something to focus on besides her pounding heart. For, aside from the usual feelings fed to her through her unusual powers, she could feel five sets of eyes drilling into the back of her skull.

"Are you ready?" Robin called out. He and the other Titans stood a handful of yards outside of the circle, behind a hastily-erected control podium that ran their little training exercise. Behind them, a wall of gray stone rose almost straight up, with a large and oddly-shaped building sitting atop its crest. Behind her, she could hear the constant lap of the ocean against the shore. All in all, she felt trapped between a rock and a wet place, and it was all she could do not to panic.

Standing near the front of the gathered heroes, Beast Boy must have sensed her discomfort, despite her confident façade. Though the youngest and clearly the goofiest, Tara knew the shapeshifter had keen senses, much keener than he let on sometimes. "Go for it, Terra!" he shouted, whirling his fist in the air and whooping obnoxiously.

A smirk floated to the surface of her edginess at the nickname. No, not a nickname anymore. It was her callsign now. Her Titan name. The moniker had started with her mother, who had given the pet name to her after she and her father had discovered little Tara's 'talents'. The name had been her mother's last dying breath. It had been the last thing she heard her father scream before running out of the ruins of their home to escape his knife. And now, it was what her new friends and teammates called her most often.

Pulling the goggles over her eyes, Terra let out a slow breath. "Ready," she said shakily, not quite believing herself. She saw Robin nod and press the controls, and the training exercise began.

The ground erupted and sprayed dirt and stone every which way as three metallic shapes burst forth. It would have surprised anyone else, but Terra had felt them coming through the ground. As such, she already knew where they would be placed, but that wasn't much help; the trio had adopted positions equidistant from Terra and each other, forming a triangle with the young heroine in the center, a triangle that shrank rapidly as they came at her.

Like everything else the Titans did, this training exercise had evolved into a game: Who could beat the robots the fastest? Each of the Titans had attacked the problem-indeed, the robots themselves- in unique ways. Cyborg had torn the automatons limb from limb. Beast Boy had morphed into a dinosaur and squashed them flat. Raven dismantled them from a safe distance, leaving them in neat little piles of parts. Starfire had simply blasted them.

Terra didn't have super-strength, couldn't change her shape, wasn't a telekinetic, and she certainly couldn't project bursts of deadly energy from her hands. She would handle this her way. Like the other female Titans, Terra had been born different. There hadn't been a time when she didn't have her powers. Her mother had called it a blessing. Her father swore it was the work of Satan. And Robin, in his infinite smarty-ness, had dubbed the talent 'geokinesis'. But to Terra, it was simply a matter of asking Mother Earth very nicely and in just the right way. Before, the problem had been that she didn't know how to stop asking, causing landslides and tremors without warning or intent.

But Terra had been practicing.

As the robots' metal feet pounded against the sand, Terra's eyes came aglow with golden energy, lighting her goggles up and tossing her radiant yellow hair back. The earth began to quake as she focused her thoughts on three separate points. It was difficult, even dangerous, to split her concentration like this, but with the drones only a few seconds away, she didn't have a choice.

Three stone spears jutted from the ground in a violent burst of rock and sand, much as the robots themselves had appeared. Terra watched with smug satisfaction as the two bots in her field of vision were impaled in mid-charge. The smooth alloy composing their chasses crumpled and gave under the tremendous power of the Earth itself, rending and splitting as the spears entered through their chests and exited their backs. Goopy oil and broken parts tumbled down and along the long stone shafts from the gaping wounds that had once been flawless mechanical torsos. Turning around, Terra eagerly anticipated the third bot's similar condition-

-as she walked right into a metallic fist.

Terra tumbled back and fell hard on her butt with a grunt of pain. She glared up at the bot and was just about to summon up another lethally sharp spear of stone when the mechanical man suddenly slumped over, deactivated. Her angry eyes shifted sideways as she ripped the dusty goggles free of her face, barking, "Why'd you stop him? I had him!"

Behind the controls, Robin shook his head. The other Titans remained silent and somber as he said with a sigh, "Sorry, Terra. You're dead. He would have torn you apart in a real fight if you dropped your guard like that."

She rose from the ground in a fuming huff and ignored the dirt that clung to her shorts as she stomped towards the console. As her fury grew, so did a subtle tremor in the ground, shaking gently with each angry step she took. "You didn't even give me a chance!"

"Because you gave your chance to him," Robin replied coolly. His face remained impassive as Terra approached, looking mad enough to eat him for lunch. He exchanged glances with Cyborg, but the looming young man merely offered the Boy Wonder a small shrug. He turned back to Terra, who looked ready to explode on the other side of his controls. "In a straight-up fight, you don't get second-"

He didn't even bat a white, featureless eye as she stuck her nose right in his face. "You think this is so easy? Huh?" she demanded. Deep down beneath her anger, Terra was confused; Robin had been one of the most vocal supporters for her joining the team, right behind Beast Boy. But he was also the toughest on her. She expected this kind of criticism from Raven, but not from him. Reaching out, she grasped his shoulders and steered him forcefully around the podium. "Why don't you give it a shot, then. It's your turn."

Robin put up no resistance as Terra steered him toward the circle. The ground beneath their feet rippled, sending a large rolling wave through the sand and dirt that flung her defeated drones aside. The stone spears withdrew into the ground, and the holes the robots had emerged from sealed themselves at her command, leaving the circle immaculate once more, and Robin at its center.

With the Titan in place, Terra returned to the simulation controls and jabbed a gloved finger first at Cyborg, then at the complicated array of controls. "Hit it, Cy." she demanded.

The metallic mountain of a teen glanced over at the team's leader skeptically. He saw Robin nod and smile as the Boy Wonder flashed a handful of fingers. Upon further silent questioning, he nodded again. Cyborg shrugged, muttering, "Here we go," and tapped a series of controls. He looked up briefly as his finger hovered over the execute button. "You ready, Robin?"

"One sec." Robin took a deep breath and flexed his shoulders. His malleable lenses narrowed to mere slits and his breathing slowed to a steady, even beat. Sand scraped beneath the metal soles of his boots as he lowered his center of gravity, adopting a shallow ready stance. "All set."

Over at the sidelines, Starfire's glowing green eyes flickered with minor concern. She leaned in toward Raven, speaking low enough to where the still-furious Terra couldn't hear her. "Why has Robin shut his eyes? Does he not take Terra's challenge seriously?"

Raven's eyes never left the colorfully-costumed hero in the circle. The sorceress' senses detected nothing but unwavering confidence radiating from his calm, ordered thoughts. "Robin takes everything seriously, Starfire," she muttered back.

"I know, but-" There was not time for Starfire to finish her fretful (and, to Raven, irritating) question as the ground around Robin exploded. This time, the set of three automatons that the rest of them had faced had grown to five.

As soon as the first wisps of sand had left the ground, Robin sprang into immediate action. Terra watched with a satisfied smirk as Robin whirled around, seemingly in a panic. It was only a second after the fact that she registered the metallic flashes streaking out from his hand. They circled around in an aerial blur, landing with five distinct thunks in the dirt at Robin's feet to reveal a quintet of birdarangs.

The robots completed their exit of the underground delivery system. There, on the surface, they remained motionless. The sun beat down on their silvery exo-frames as Robin opened his eyes, releasing the breath he had unconsciously been holding. With a satisfied nod, he bent down to retrieve his weapons, calling out, "How's my time, Cy?"

With a shake of his head, Cyborg double-checked the numbers, then called out, "You beat Raven by a good two seconds." There was a brief flicker of annoyance across Raven's shadowy features. "Looks like a new course record."

Robin nodded as he began making his way between the motionless drones back toward the console. "I still need to work on my aim a little," he remarked offhandedly. "Almost missed the one on my right. Of course," he added as he passed a slack-jawed Terra, "My aim's always been a little shaky with my off-hand."

"But...but..." Terra was speechless. She stewed for a moment as Starfire all but tackled Robin in a congratulatory hug. Gesturing frantically to the unmoving automatons, Terra insisted, "He didn't DO anything! They just stopped on their own!" She stamped her foot for good measure, sending a trembling wave rolling across the ground.

Each of the five robots shook at Terra's outburst. One by one, their heads fell from their shoulders, sliced clean by the razor edges of Robin's birdarangs. The decapitated bodies soon collapsed after.

Pointedly ignoring Terra's gaping expression of disbelief, Robin waved a green glove toward the path that would take them back to the Tower. "C'mon, guys. That's enough for today. Let's pack it in and get dinner started." He began traveling up the trail, whistling a nameless tune with his hands laced together behind his head.

The ground continued to shake as Terra glared at their receding leader, until a soft hand clasped her shoulder from behind. Realizing what her anger was doing, Terra quickly forced herself to calm down.

"You performed admirably for one so inexperienced in combat," Starfire consoled her with an uncannily cheerful grin as she squeezed Terra's shoulder.

"Yeah!" Beast Boy jumped between then with a fist pumping in the air, exclaiming, "You rocked! Pun totally intended." Somewhere behind them, Raven did nothing to hide her groan. "Now c'mon," the changeling pulled insistently on Terra's arm, "Let's head home. I'll make us all something great to eat."

Cold metal pressed against Terra as Cyborg wrapped his arm around her and lifted her up without effort, carrying her on his shoulders as if she weighed nothing. "C'mon, BB," he snorted, "Don't you think she's suffered enough?" Starfire joined in Terra's laughter as Beast Boy's look darkened a moment. Feeling a little better, Terra felt Cyborg jostle her a little in good humor. "Relax, girl," he told her, "Robin's not the easiest guy to please. You did fine."

From her perch, Terra could see Robin ambling up the switchbacks carved into the high cliff face that led up to their tremendous 'T'. Some of the amusement drained away as she muttered under her breath, "Not fine enough, I guess..."

* * *

It was after hours in the Tower. The lights had either been turned off or dimmed, reflecting the dark night sky alighted only by a handful of shimmering stars and the twinkling city lights in the distance. There existed a quiet tranquility that the home of Earth's mightiest teens didn't experience during the day, between Cyborg's maintenance, Robin's training, Starfire's natural exuberance and the antics of the irrepressible Beast Boy. It was a soothing peace, the kind that begged not to be broken.

As such, Terra crept quietly in stocking feet through the corridors spanning the distance between her quarters and the main all-purpose room, where their kitchen awaited her gurgling stomach. Usually, she didn't succumb to midnight cravings, but she hadn't shown up for dinner. **He** had been there, and she was still too mad at **him** to remain in the same room as **he** was in and keep her appetite.

But as time wore on, turning day into night, Terra realized she had overreacted. What was worse, Robin had been right, and he hadn't even had the good taste to be a jerk about it. Instead, he had spoken calmly and rationally, while she had blown her top and tossed a terrain-tumbling tantrum.

As the automatic doors of the main room swished open, she was greeted by an uncomfortable, yet not quite unpleasant, surprise. 'Speak of the devil,' she thought with some amusement.

Robin sat at one of the computer terminals at the far side of the room, tucked away in the corner near the enormous window that spanned the width of the tower top. His head twisted calmly at the sound of the doors, then nodded in silent greeting as she entered the room. Though his mask was still in place (she suspected he slept with it on), he was dressed comfortably in a tank top and a pair of sweat pants. It felt strange to see him out of his colorful, trademark uniform. Then again, in her pajama pants and oversized T-shirt, Terra was hardly one to comment on wardrobe choices.

The tranquil spell about the Tower kept Robin's voice low and soft as he called out, "Hey."

Just 'Hey.' No, 'Hey, you whiny loser,' or 'Hey, you're off the team.' Just 'Hey.' Robin clearly wasn't going to make hating him easy. The smarmy bastard even had a small, non-threatening smile aimed at her. What a jerk!

"Hey," she replied with abashed color filtering into her cheeks as she shuffled down the stairs and walked the length of the carpet to their small kitchenette set in the side of the room. Robin collected a small black mug and joined her a moment later. "You're up awful late."

"Was about to say the same thing to you," he countered with a smile. The coffee pot clanked softly as he refilled his cup with murky liquid. Steam fluttered from the mug as he inhaled its scent deeply, then took a delicate sip. Though scalding, the hot liquid warmed his insides and chased away the creeping fog in his brain. "This is pretty normal for me."

Terra smirked as she watched him take another sip. "What," she teased, "Batman taught you how to go without sleep?"

Robin's serious eyes locked in on her over the rim of his mug. She felt a small spark of dread welling up inside her, until he lowered his mug, revealing a small smile of his own. "Actually, yes." At Terra's skeptical look, he added, "It's a rejuvenating form of meditation. Sort of like what Raven does, but for rest instead of focus. Three or four hours of that are as good as eight hours of sleep."

"Really? Cool."

"So what about you?" he asked.

"Oh, uh..." Terra rubbed the back of her neck as her discomfort returned. "I was just hungry."

"I can imagine." Robin remarked. "We missed you at dinner. Though I doubt you would have missed Beast Boy's Tofu Surprise..."

She shuddered at the notion. Though Terra thought the world of Beast Boy, his cooking was almost as bad as Starfire's. Considering that the alien was still having trouble distinguishing between substances that would or would not kill a human upon consumption, she could see how the latter had an excuse for her hideous concoctions. Unfortunately, BB didn't. "What's the surprise?" she asked with a hint of trepidation.

"You...really don't want to know."

During the following moment of silence, Terra was simultaneously impressed and disgusted at Robin's total ease compared to he own anxiousness. The words she wished to say kept dying in her throat as she rummaged through the fridge and came back with a slice of rhubarb pie. Her movements were slow and deliberate as she got a fork from the drawer and pulled a stool up to the counter. And the whole time, Robin just stood there, insufferably cool, drinking his coffee and staring off into space.

Finally, the quiet got the better of Terra. "Listen, Robin. I'm...sorry. About earlier." It was a lame apology, but the best she could come up with at the moment.

His mug rested onto the counter with a quiet clack. "Me too," he said quietly.

Terra was taken aback. "You're sorry? For what?" With growing shame, she stared down into her pie, reliving the events of the afternoon with objectivity that had eluded her at the moment. "I was the one that pitched a hissy fit over a stupid game."

"Yeah," he admitted, much to her chagrin, "But I didn't have to stop you right in the middle of your run. And I certainly didn't have to show off. But I did." Robin actually looked embarrassed. "Not my proudest leadership moment."

They stared at each other for a moment. Then they began chuckling softly at their shared mortification.

"Apology accepted," laughed Robin.

Terra smiled. "Ditto." But her amusement faded into quiet thought as she observed Robin. Despite the good humor in his voice, Robin's face never lost that serious quality that seemed to radiate from everything he did. Whether it was training, or hanging out in his PJs, nothing Robin did seemed casual, but rather a carefully calculated measure toward some unseen goal. "So, what are you doing up this late, anyway? Even crime sleeps once in a while."

Robin glanced back at the computer screen across the room and scratched his head. "Just reading up on current events. I've found it pays to stay well-informed."

Pointing at his face, she remarked, "And that requires a mask?"

His ungloved fingers brushed up against the adhesive fabric over his eyes. The lenses widened slowly, and then softened back to their normal state as a wry look crossed his mysterious features. His shoulders shook with silent laughter at a private joke. "You know, Starfire and I were talking about that just this morning."

"Really. And what did you tell your girlfriend?"

The dig went unanswered. "It's not just a mask," he explained patiently. "It's part of who I am. I mean, without it, I really wouldn't be Robin."

Puzzlement caused Terra's head to tilt as she examined the accessory glued to his face. She reached out slowly to touch the smooth fabric. At first, Robin shied from her touch, but ultimately allowed her to trace its outline across his nose. Terra felt a rush of excitement pound in her veins at the sensation, and wondered if that was what Robin felt when he put the mask on. "And you have to be Robin all the time?"

"What do you mean?"

Pulling back, Terra took a hearty bite of her pie, ignoring Robin's lingering discomfort from her touch. "When we're pounding on bad guys, I'm Terra. But here..." She swallowed the bite and gestured around the room with a helpless shrug. "I mean, this is our home. Here, I can just be Tara. No one to fight, and no one to impress...except maybe the occasional good-looking green guy."

Robin smiled. "He likes you too, you know."

"Don't try to change the subject." Terra stabbed her fork at him before using it to cram another large bite into her mouth. "We've all seen little glimpses of him, you know."

He frowned, curious. "Who?"

"You. The real you," she clarified. "The one that laughs when we watch one of BB's stupid DVDs together. The one that tries, just like everyone else, to get Raven to come out of her room and have a good time with us. The one who stares at Starfire as if she were the only woman on the planet when he thinks nobody's looking."

Even in the darkened room, Terra could have sworn she saw Robin blush for just a second before he recomposed himself. "I'm not like everyone else."

"Well, yeah. The cape kind of gave that one away." Terra smirked.

"No, I mean..." He sighed, looking down into his empty cup. "The rest of you have amazing abilities, right?" At her nod, he continued, "And you had to give something up to keep those. You were living alone because you couldn't control your ability. Starfire was sacrificed by her own parents to save their planet. Gar and Victor, well, they'll never be able to walk down the street without attracting a hell of a lot of attention. And Raven..."

"But you don't have any of that." Terra insisted. Folding her arms, she leaned back and examined the hard, muscular lines of his body, not unappreciatively. "If you take off that mask, you could go anywhere. You could be perfectly normal."

"Only on the outside." Robin tapped a finger on his chest, looking more somber than usual. "To become who I am, I had to change a lot of what I was."

"Oh...kay." Terra still didn't really understand, and she doubted she would. But there was still another point she was confused on. "So you've got a split-personality problem. That doesn't explain why we never see the other one."

She instantly regretted treating the subject so callously as Robin's face fell. A half-assed apology was working its way out of her mouth when he cut her off with a gentle reply. "Being a sidekick, keeping a double life...that was easy enough. You be one during the day, and the other at night. But here?" His gaze traveled out to the city sleeping off in the distance. Seeing it from their island in the bay, it was easy to imagine that the heart of Jump City was as quiet as it seemed from the Tower. "The Titans are a full-time gig. Teams like this, with so much to protect, and so many different conflicting personalities, requires constant leadership. A lot of organization."

"So..."

"So when the time came to budget my time," he shrugged, "Something had to go. Seeing as how no one knew the other me anyway... It was just easier."

"Just like that." The disbelief was hard to miss in Terra's voice. "You stopped being, er, whoever you were, and just decided to be Robin full time?"

A small and very bitter grin graced his lips. "Super-heroing is a lot easier without a secret identity. A lot of heroes go public early in their career because they can't take it. I just...reversed the formula."

Before their conversation could continue, an incessant beeping called Robin's attention from his abandoned computer. Robin slid from his seat and obeyed the machine's bidding. Terra followed behind, frowning curiously; she hadn't been a member of the team all that long, but she recognized that tone as an incoming signal. But who would call the Titans at that hour?

Interested in finding out, Robin slid into his seat, barely registering Terra's presence as she leaned over his shoulder, bracing herself on the back of his chair. He pressed a series of controls, never taking his eyes off the monitor. But when the screen flashed and coalesced into their caller, his intent stare went wide with surprise.

_"Robin!"_ A woman in a white-and-purple mask sagged with relief as the call came online. _"Oh, thank God. I wasn't sure if anyone was going to be awake."_

Terra didn't recognize the woman, but clearly Robin did. He leaned forward, examining her briefly. Though they were disguised, Terra could clearly tell the woman possessed an elegant beauty, with full, pouting lips, a pert, sculpted nose, and long raven hair that flowed out of the camera's field. But the woman's eyes were puffy and red, and her mask and cheeks were slick with wetness.

"Huntress." Robin had known Batman's on-again-off-again ally for only a short time before coming to the west coast to establish the Titans, but he knew she wouldn't be contacting him without a dire reason. He didn't waste any time asking stupid questions and went straight to the important one. "Is he all right?"

_"Batman's fine,"_ she said. Her eyes flickered up for a moment, and Terra could tell she had been discovered. The Huntress tried to compose herself, and even adopted a low growl reminiscent of any of the heroes Gotham had spawned. However, her efforts were lacking, as the crack remained in her upset tone. _"It's Batgirl."_

Robin's heart leapt into his throat, but years of training forced his features to remain straight. "What happened?"

One word seemed to sum it all up and send a chill down the Teen Wonder's spine simultaneously. _"Joker."_ Even Terra, new to the superhero biz, knew enough to gasp. _"We tracked him to his latest hide-out, except he wasn't there."_

Huntress wouldn't have been crying over a lost opportunity to bag Batman's greatest foe. The slippery clown had wriggled from the Caped Crusaders' collective grasp for years now. "There was a trap."

His hunch proved accurate at Huntress' nod. _"Flying razor disks, poison darts, explosives...the works. Bats and I made it out okay, but Batgirl..."_ Huntress looked away, suddenly choked up. All attempts at keeping her tough visage fell through immediately as she croaked, _"There was a falling beam. She...she pushed me out of the way. It...right on her spine, and..."_

Robin could barely contain himself. His face was practically pressed to the screen as he asked, "Is she-"

_"She's alive. Leslie's taking care of her."_

Terra bit down on her knuckle to stifle the cry worming up her throat as she watched Robin look away. His soulless white eyes seemed ablaze with anger and helplessness, his brow knit and fists shaking. "Where-"

_"We don't know."_ Defeat rang true in Huntress' words, but there was a spark of hope buried within as she added, _"He's running lines to every one of his contacts. Even has the Justice League on the case. But..."_

"But what?" Robin demanded. He couldn't wait to rally his own team behind the cause and track down that bastard clown. No one hurt Barbara and got away with it.

_"We found this note in the wreckage,"_ Huntress said. She looked down, apparently working a keyboard. _"I've already contacted Nightwing, he's got the Outsiders on alert. But there's no knowing..."_

As she trailed off, the screen split. The left side remained an image of Huntress, looking hurt and angry as she had been a moment ago. The right transformed into a field of white, a scanned image with only a few lines of cursive. Robin recognized the Joker's handwriting immediately, even before his brain began piecing the words together. Once they had, his blood ran cold. He felt Terra grip his shoulder tightly. Whether it was out of fear or an attempt to reassure him, he didn't know. Nor did he care.

The note read:

_Bats,_

_Lately, it seems like there are too many little ones getting underfoot. I miss the good old days, when you and I could go out and have a good time without worrying about the children. But don't worry, I think I know how to bring back the spark in our relationship. It'll take some sacrificing on both our parts, but let's face it:_

_The kids have got to go._

**To Be Continued**


	3. Robin: Punch Line

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith Nine_

* * *

**Robin**: _Punch Line_

"I do not understand."

Robin had heard those four words on an almost daily basis for the past eighteen months, since he and the other three Titans had investigated a strange impact north of Jump City. Expecting trouble on a cosmic scale, Robin had instead found a best friend who had also turned out to be the missing part of his soul...or at least, that's how it seemed whenever he felt compelled to wax poetic.

Leaning back in the computer's swiveling chair, Robin nodded up at the golden face looming over his shoulder. He could see her pinpoint eyebrows furrowed over a pair of luminous green eyes brimming with worry. Starfire tended to fret about a lot of things, but in this case, the Teen Wonder was forced to agree.

"I don't blame you, Kory," he sighed as the two-dimensional representation of a pale, grinning face rotated above a set of statistics on the screen. The numbers were horrifying enough on their own-body counts, criminal records, and sheer property damage-but Robin knew all too well the true, sickening dread that they represented. The sheer number of times he had almost wound up becoming one of those statistics was nothing short of staggering. "The Joker's a tough individual to figure out."

Since the disturbing call from Huntress the night before, Robin hadn't slept or eaten. His constant research had been interrupted only to gather the rest of the Titans once they had woken up to warn them of the new development. Now it was nightfall once again, and Robin was going on nearly thirty hours without sleep, meditation or food. Pure adrenaline was the only thing keeping him alert, coupled with the knowledge of what the Joker intended for him.

A snort sounded from the central couch across the room. Looking back, Starfire and Robin both saw Cyborg leaning back into the circular seat's pillowy folds as the television bathed him in flickering light. His metallic components shone with a multitude of colors in the reflected images as he cast a red-eyed gaze over at the pair. "Not that hard to figure out. Dude's psychotic. Should've been put down years ago, and now its up to us."

Despite the bravado in their friend's voice, Robin noticed him anxiously grinding his metallic knuckles into the arm of the couch. Nearby, Beast Boy sat perched on the back of the couch, trying for all the world to look like he was watching the show intently and not being sick with worry, which was as readable on his face as any headline in a paper. Not far from there, in the kitchen, Terra and Raven sat together at the dinner table, each with a cup of herbal tea. Terra seemed unusually pale for a down-and-dirty girl who saw a lot of sun. Raven was pale, too, but that was normal. However, anyone who knew her well could pick up on the subtle hints that betrayed her own worry; the shiftiness in her eyes, the subtle flexing of her fingers. Without a word, the rest of the Titans broadcasted their worry, and that in turn made Robin even more nervous. In a rough and tumble with the Joker, how much could he count on them? They were already psyching themselves out for a loss before the game ever truly began.

A small island of comfort in the sea of rising panic was Starfire; with little experience regarding Earth's villains, the young heroine was having trouble understanding why everyone else was so damned edgy. "I was led to understand that clowns are purveyors of joy and laughter," she insisted as she scratched her head. For a creature powered by emotions, there was no ignoring the sense of dread that this villain instilled in her friends. "On Tamaran, my parents kept a court jester who-"

Beast Boy flipped from the couch and landed crouched on the floor with a hard look cast on his impish features. "You were told wrong, Star," he said with a strangely solemn stare and a spooky voice. His legs flexed as he leapt forward, landing just in front of Starfire. The Tamaranian girl squeaked with surprise as he bared dull fangs and imaginary claws at her, saying, "Clowns are evil, disgusting, awful mutants that lurk in the night, just waiting to get you!"

"R-Really?" Starfire's hand flew to her mouth to cover the terrified wail clawing at the inside of her throat.

Her emerald eyes grew to the size of saucers as Beast Boy nodded. "They wait in the shadows with their balloon animal creatures and a sack filled with bad joke books. Then," he added, his voice growing hushed as he leaned in, "They sneak into your room and-"

A metal hand snagged the collar of Beast Boy's uniform and hauled him into the air before he could bring Starfire's mounting terror to its climax. The shapeshifter soon found himself staring down a cold red-and-blue glare. "Knock it off, Gar," Cyborg said gruffly.

"What?" Beast Boy seemed surprised, even annoyed, at Cyborg's interruption. Starfire, on the other hand, was emitting waves of gratitude for the rescue. The changeling harrumphed, then yelped when Cyborg let him drop to the floor. "It was just a joke. Jeez..."

Cyborg's glare didn't waver. He knew the younger Titan was only trying to ease the tension with a little humor. Unfortunately, Beast Boy's humor could always be counted on to make things worse, not better. "Not funny," he told Beast Boy. "The Joker is a real monster, not some stupid campfire story."

"He's not a clown," Robin spoke up as he swiveled away from the computer to face the rest of the room. "And he's not a monster. He's just a man."

Terra's cup rattled as she set it back on the table. "The worst kind of man," she shivered. Unlike the other Titans, Terra didn't even try to hide how much this new threat had rattled her. "The things I've heard...I never imagined I'd be fighting someone like him. The...The things I've heard..." she said again in a hoarse whisper.

"They're probably all true," lamented Robin. He sighed again as he came to a very difficult decision. Joker was here for him and him alone. It wasn't like their other cases; Jump City wasn't in any real danger, if the Joker's note was to be believed. There was no reason to put his friends at risk. "That's why I want you all to-"

"Forget it."

It was the first thing Raven had said in hours, and it drew the room's attention immediately. Even Robin was a little shocked. He wondered if she had been reading his thoughts. "You don't even know what I was going to say."

Still looming over Beast Boy, Cyborg smiled grimly. "I'll bet we've got the gist of it," he said.

"Yeah." Hauling himself off of the floor, Beast Boy dusted himself off. He hooked his fingers together and made a pretty decent mock-up of Robin's mask, then held it to his face and said in a poor impression of the Teen Wonder's voice, "I don't want you guys getting hurt. This is my fight, blah-blah big words, I'm the leader, blah-blah more big words, sit back and watch as I go off to get torn to shreds by the biggest baddie ever to hit Jump City, blah." He lowered his hands with a triumphant expression.

"Something like that," Raven nodded, then added, "Only less stupid."

Starfire rested her hand on Robin's caped shoulder as Beast Boy shot Raven an irritated look. Her face was sad as she said, "We are a team, Robin. We are friends. Would you let any one of us fight alone, were the situations reversed?"

Robin stared back into the beautiful girl's stunning green eyes and knew the answer in a heartbeat. Never. "You're right."

Trying to square her shoulders and erase the fear from her face, Terra pushed her chair back and exhaled a wave of nauseous tension. "Well," she offered slowly, "No good to sit around and build him up in our heads. Dude's scary enough as it is. I say we find him and kick some pasty clown ass!"

Were the situation less dire, Robin might have smiled. Instead, he simply nodded and turned back to the computer monitor, resting his chin upon his fist in quiet thought.

"Okay," Cyborg walked up behind Robin and leaned on the chair as they stared together at the screen. "So now we just have to find him." There was a pause, then, "Any leads?"

Robin nodded. With a few keystrokes, the screen switched to a scrolling list as long as a Tolkein novel, and almost as confusing. Technical words scrolled by at unreadable speeds, accompanied by corporate names and logos. One in particular stood out from the rest:

"Lexcorp?" Starfire stood opposite Cyborg, leaning in as he did. Between the two of them, Robin was forced to scrunch down or risk slamming his head into Cyborg's armored chest (or worse, Starfire's...delicates...which were distractingly close). "I have heard of this conglomerate before."

"There's a lot of bad blood between Luthor and the Joker," Robin explained. He froze the list and shifted it into a text box on the right side of the screen. In its place arose a map of the United States. An irregular trail of red dots traced a path between Gotham and Jump City on opposite coasts, marking each time the Joker had been sighted. "And he's been spilling that blood all the way here...over three billion in equipment gone from almost two dozen different facilities in the last week alone."

Being a tech wiz, Cyborg was able to identify quite a bit of the stolen goods. "He could level half the city with this stuff."

"And blow up the other half." This drew the other Titans to the computer station in a heartbeat. As the team gathered, Robin called up a map of Jump City. With just a cursory glance, Robin could spot at least a dozen likely places the Joker could have set up shop...and the one thing Robin was sure of was that he had already moved in. Joker liked having a base of operations to work from. Unfortunately, that was his one and only pattern, aside from a vicious streak of cruelty and a sense of irony. "It could take weeks to find him unless we come up with some kind of lead." Robin groused.

A flicker of light drew Raven's attention outside. With an upturned brow, she quipped, "You mean like that?"

All eyes flew to the great bay window, overlooking Jump Harbor and the city beyond. And high in the sky, superimposed over a carpet of clouds, was a perfect circle of pure white. And inside of that circle, a single letter hung far above the tallest skyscraper, burning itself into the heavens. That same letter heaved as Robin drew in a startled breath.

Beast Boy's jaw hung slackened. His wasn't the only one. "Dude's calling us out... He's crazy!" None of them could really believe it.

A hard, bitter look replaced Robin's surprise. "Yeah. Let's go welcome him to the neighborhood."

* * *

Lights flashed past, creating a strobe effect on the interior of the T-Car as they raced along the underground tunnel connecting their island to Jump City. Cyborg drove with a sense of grim anticipation that hunched him over the steering wheel. Raven rode shotgun next to him. The dashboard computer had opened up at her behest, and her fingers now danced across a keyboard, accessing satellite imaging to zero in on the origin of the 'Robin Signal.' Behind them, Terra and Beast Boy fidgeted impatiently. 

Starfire and Robin were at point ahead of the massive vehicle. The latter was a mere red streak on his R-Cycle, whereas Starfire jetted along, leaving a faint trail of green energy in her wake. Cyborg's attention was divided between watching the two Titans in the lead and glancing over at Raven expectantly. In a few moments, they would reach the end of the main tunnel and enter a series of branch-off points, connecting them to smaller tunnels which would take them to nearly any point in the city they needed to go. Though costly, Cyborg was now very grateful for the feature, for it meant they could get the drop on their quarry without him ever seeing them coming.

Raven ignored the driver's irritating silent question, and tapped furiously at the awkward keyboard set at an angle in the dash. After a moment, she zeroed in on the skylight's source, and referenced an electronic map in another window. "He's right on the waterfront," she announced. "Warehouse Thirteen on Pier Seven."

Unfastening her seatbelt, Terra leaned forward, gripping Cyborg's seat. "Does anyone else have a really bad feeling about this?" she asked shakily.

"The phrase, 'No duh,' springs to mind." Raven muttered.

Ignoring the insult, Terra shook her head and continued, "No, seriously. I mean, this dude's after Robin, right? And he's telling us right where he is. No riddles, no countdown or ultimatum...no nothing!"

"So?" Beast Boy leaned back, pretending to relax when, in reality, it was the last thing he wanted to do. "So we catch a break. Chill and enjoy it, gorgeous."

Terra's teeth ground together. Why are the pretty ones always so stupid? "I'm saying," she growled, "That Wonder Boy is leading us right into a big fat trap!"

Beast Boy immediately sprang up. His eyes went wide as the revelation jolted through him with incredible force. "Huh?"

"Well of course it's a trap," Raven blew an impatient breath, pulling her hood up and masking her features in shadow. "Any idiot could have figured that out right away."

"Uh...yeah!" Beast Boy added, thumping his chest as Terra sat back, blinking in confusion. "But, uh, just for Terra's sake...Why are we plowing nose-first into a trap?"

It was Cyborg who answered, though his eyes never left the road. "Because Robin knows the Joker well enough to know that when he gets bored or impatient, people start dying."

"Oh," Beast Boy said again.

Terra wasn't convinced. "But no plan? No info? This seems kind of stupid..."

A digitized tone filtered in through the T-Car's speakers at Terra's criticism. _"Right now,"_ Robin's voice told them, _"We don't have enough info for a plan. And the only way to get that info is to scope out what the Joker's got planned for me." _Terra was silently grateful that Robin couldn't see her cheeks turning bright red as he added, _"The open comm's working perfectly, Cyborg. What've you got?"_

Ignoring their newest member's embarrassment, Cyborg punched up the map Raven had been using, marking their destination with a big red 'T'. "Got it right here, Fearless Leader. I'm sending it to you on the wireless now."

There was a pause, then, _"We'll take Hatch Two, it opens up about three blocks from the warehouse."_

"Roger that."

_"Be careful,"_ added Robin. _"We don't know for sure if Joker knows about our little tunnels. He might have booby-trapped the opening. Stay frosty."_

The comm crackled, and then Starfire's electronic voice butted in. _"Were we supposed to decrease our relative temperature prior to-"_

_"Forget it, Star. Robin out."_ The rest of them could almost hear the tiny smirk in Robin's words as the communications' channel clicked off.

Terra waited a moment, making sure that the Teen Wonder could no longer hear them. Then, she launched right back to the point where she had left off. "Look," she started again, "I'm not saying I don't trust Robin an' all. It's just..." Her protest trailed off, not needing to be finished.

"Just concentrate on the job and follow our lead, Terra." Cyborg told her.

Raven turned around, looking darkly at the rambling rookie. "Robin knows what he's doing."

Turning back, she added a silent, 'I hope,' that they all shared.

* * *

"Well?" demanded Robin. 

Cyborg's hand lowered from the metallic plating of his skull. His glowing red eye flickered a moment before returning to its normal scanning mode. "Nothing."

Gathered around the parked T-Car and R-Cycle a few buildings down the long, rickety row of warehouses, the Titans watched their leader arguing with the technical marvel. Water gently lapped against the long support struts of the wooden docks, which were lit by only a handful of fading street lamps and a handful of stars still visible in the city. Aside from the occasional horn or siren from deep within the heart of Jump City, there was no noise, save for that of the ocean. But Robin apparently intended to put a stop to that.

He crossed his arms over his Kevlar-protected chest and shook his head. "Not buying it." A single green glove pointed skyward, where the 'R-Signal' still hung mockingly overhead. "The lights are on, and you're telling me no one's home?"

Setting his jaw in an irritated grimace, Cyborg looked down at the younger boy and forced himself not to lose his patience. "I've run every kind of scan my body can support on that building. I even used the T-Car's sensors to confirm it. We aren't getting anything from that building. No power sources, no life signs...nothing."

There was a long moment of terse silence as Robin's mask narrowed into tiny white slits that threatened to bore a hole through the warehouse in question. Finally, his arms uncrossed, and he began to stride forward purposefully. With a little scrambling, the other Titans fell into step, though none of them looked too happy about it.

"Fine. We'll do this the old-fashioned way." Looking over his shoulder, he glared back at Beast Boy with such ferocity that the green changeling nearly soiled himself. It was only after he spoke that BB realized Robin's anger wasn't channeled directly at him. "Beast Boy, you've got point. Entry Formation Delta." Robin had already drawn his staff, which extended itself to full length with a soft click.

The troubled expression on Beast Boy's face morphed into one of pure delight, even as Terra's expression became quizzical. "I'm a little new to this one, General..." she piped up as Beast Boy strode forward. "What exactly is 'Entry Formation...' whatever?"

Looking back, Beast Boy tossed her a smile. "Just stand back," he said, "And try not to get any splinters in your eyes." With that, his outline began to blur and expand. Rough, scaly skin ballooned outward at such a rate that Terra yelped and took a step back. An instant later, a large, green rhinoceros loomed in front of the Titans, and gave the earthen blonde a randy wink.

* * *

The western wall of Warehouse Thirteen on Pier Seven exploded inward in a hail of wooden particles, allowing the fearsome and miscolored rhino to come charging through. 

He was quickly followed by the rest of the Titans, who entered in a triangular formation; Raven and Terra took the trailing outer points to cover the rear, while Starfire and Cyborg watched over their flanks in front of the other two ladies. Robin led their formation, with his staff in one hand and a birdarang in the other hand. Beast Boy shifted from a rhino straight into a Kangaroo, and leapt backwards into a double somersault that placed him square in the middle of the other Titans. With all sides covered and all member ready, the Titans were prepared for anything.

And they were met with a great big steaming pile of nothing.

Light filtered in through the 'door' Beast Boy had so generously donated to the building, casting a pale illumination against the blanketing darkness of the warehouse's interior. With the meager exception of the flotsam created in their entrance, the Titans found absolutely nothing else around them. There were no villainous traps, no armadas of henchmen waiting to pummel them into submission...hell, there weren't even any crates occupying the building. It was bare-bones empty.

Everyone save for Robin relaxed a hair. Beast Boy rubbed his nose, which still stung a tad from his previous form's impact. "Well," he groused nasally, "This was certainly worth risking my flawless features over. Why don't I go run through a few more walls just to be sure?"

"Quiet." Robin snapped. His eyes scanned over every inch of the warehouse, looking for something they might have initially missed. "Stay focused. He's here."

"Well, if he is," Cyborg quipped, "He's invisible."

That's when a haunting cackle echoed through the yawing space. A collective gasp arose among the Titans, but Robin kept his jaw clamped and his eyes open. Every muscle in his body was tensed and ready for action as he searched about. "Show yourself!" demanded the teen. "Enough of these games, Joker. I saw the signal, and I'm here. Let's just end this!"

The lighting in the warehouse rose to a more comfortable level, but slowly. It was as if whoever was running the show wanted to give their eyes a chance to adjust. Robin didn't trust the gesture anyhow, and was glad his lenses were resistant to painful levels of light. He blinked as his pupils shrunk, and pulled back in surprise. There, leaning casually in a corner Robin was sure had been empty a moment before, was a pale, grinning figure in a gaudy purple suit.

"Oh, well played, old chum." Joker said graciously, clapping slowly and steadily.

He pushed off from the wall and began strolling forward in a laid-back manner, examining the Titans as if they were a painting hanging in the museum. He would 'hmm' and 'humm' every so often, rubbing his chin and squinting at the six heroes. The flippancy of Joker's gait only set warning bells off in Robin's head. Whatever the Joker had planned, he was in full control, and Robin only hoped they could best him in spite of that.

At last, the Joker stopped a mere handful of yards from the Titans. He shook his head and clucked his tongue like a scolding mother. "This is what you left Gotham City for, young Robin? Tsk, tsk. I really am disappointed, I must say." The clown leaned in and cupped a hand to his mouth, as if to convey a sense of confidentiality. "What must old Bats think of you hanging around with these sordid metahumans? Hmm?"

Teeth grinding together, Robin thrust his staff between his team and the Joker, and declared, "Are you going to come quietly, Joker? We have you outnumbered and outgunned."

"And outclassed," Beast Boy added.

Joker actually chuckled at this. He chucked a thumb in the young Titan's direction and said, "I kind of like the green one." Eyeing the field of glares in front of him, he added, "The rest look like a pretty sour bunch, though. Ah well. So much the better that I get to kill you, I suppose."

"Joker, if you hurt any of my friends because you're after me, I'll-"

"You?" And at this, the Joker threw his head back and roared with shrieking laughter. He actually doubled over, clutching his ribs as the Titans looked on with a mixture of caution and confusion. Finally, the Joker managed to collect himself. He wiped the tears from his eyes and said between chuckles, "You stupid little birdie, you actually think this is about you?"

Robin tried to hide his confusion. He didn't need to lose face in front of his team, to say nothing of this twisted lunatic. "Your note-"

The Clown Prince of Crime sniffed disdainfully and waved Robin's insistences away. "You never were a bright one, were you, kid? None of this is about you. It's never been about you!"

"Then...why?"

"Why, for Batman, of course!" Sweeping his arms in a wide gesture, the Joker looked to the ceiling and laughed. "It's always been about Batman."

"Then y'all are in the wrong city, Chuckles." Cyborg's right arm clicked and mechamorphed into a sonic cannon. The end glowed blue as he warmed it up, already zeroing in his mental crosshairs right on Joker's breadbasket.

The ground trembled as Terra stepped forward. For all her fear, she had yet to see anything that made the Joker so dangerous or demented. All she saw was some pale goofball in an empty building, threatening her friends and teammates. And that didn't sit well with her. "We're fresh out of bats, Bozo."

"But we're having a special on Titans," Beast Boy growled. He crouched low to the floor, ready to turn into a jungle cat or a T-Rex, or whatever struck his fancy when it came time for the dramatic hero/villain fight following their trash-talking. "Six for one, all you can eat."

Starfire's hands came aglow with powerful, deadly bursts of green photonic energy her teammates had dubbed 'Starbolts'. That same power burned in her eyes, sizzling the air as her head shifted this way and that. "You do not come to our city and threaten our friend," she said in a barely-contained snarl. Especially not 'my' Robin, she added in her head.

Raven didn't bother with stupid, clichéd remarks. Stretching her powers out, she grasped at the thousands of tiny splinters at their feet. Immediately, the wooden shards became encased in dozens of individual black fields, and lifted into the air. Cloak billowing, eyes narrowed, Raven brought the shards to bear on the Joker, ready to perforate him at the first sign of trouble.

For all the power standing before him, Joker simply yawned and stretched. "So this is what I'm reduced to? Teenagers in kitschy costumes flexing their big meta-muscles and tossing out tired old banter? How dull." He suddenly seemed extremely preoccupied with his nails, blowing on them and biting at a stray cuticle. "I certainly hope Batman appreciates all the effort I'm going to here."

"He'll appreciate it plenty," Robin growled, "Once you're back in Arkham!" With that, his arm snapped out, releasing a razor-edged birdarang. The colorful shuriken soared true, striking Joker square in the forehead-

-and continuing on, exiting through the back of his green-haired scalp.

For the first time that evening, Robin was honestly surprised. His weary mind drew a blank as his birdarang thudded into the opposite wall. Joker, for his part, didn't seem to have even noticed the blow. He flickered for a moment, and then vanished.

"Hologram!" Cyborg snarled.

A moment later, the Joker, or at least a passable likeness to him, reappeared several feet away from where he had disappeared from. This Joker stood straight and tall, and looked Robin square in the eyes. Whatever equipment he was using, it was certainly sophisticated, enough so to fool Robin's intuition and Cyborg's equipment.

The clown wasted no time, launching right into the matter at hand. "If you're watching this," he stated in a bored tone, "It means you've finally figured out that I'm not there. Naturally, I'm miles away at the moment in my real lair. I sincerely hope, Robin, that you didn't think I'd lead you straight to my actual hidey-hole." With that, he waggled a finger at the Titan and shook his head. "Sloppy."

Robin's dread exploded into full panic. Whirling around, he gestured to their entrance, which would soon be their exit. "MOVE!" he shouted, leading by example as he ran for the hole in the wall.

Continuing on, the recording said, "No doubt you're trying to escape. Now, we can't have that, can we?"

Large metal shutters began descending from the ceiling, covering every square inch of the walls. The rotting planks of wood were replaced with two inches of solid metal. The Titans watched with dismay as their homemade door was swallowed by the dropping metal wall. With a resounding clang, the trap was complete; everywhere they looked, there was a wall of alloy blocking their way; no windows, no doors, and no escape.

"Part of me is a little sorry that I won't be there to see you and your little Teen Twerps bite the big one," hologram Joker continued. Then he shrugged, smiling a little to himself. "But then again, if you're this easy to kill, then why should I even waste my time?"

The air rang with his demented cackle as his projection threw his head back and howled with laughter. At the same time, a section of the floor slid away, and a large, smooth box rose from the concrete floor. Its obsidian surface was seamless and featureless, save for a single digital readout in its center. It was a countdown-

-a countdown on five, and dropping fast.

Joker's image flickered and died, but his maddening laughter remained, taunting the Titans to the bitter end. There was no time to even think about disarming the bomb. Neither Robin nor Cyborg would know where to begin if they even had an hour, much less the four seconds remaining. The Teen Wonder didn't even have time to shout out an order. There was only time to act.

With four seconds left, Terra's eyes glowed gold as she reached down with her powers and yanked up a solid block of concrete. Had there been more time, or had her brain not been so addled with fear, she might have been able to create one big enough to protect the whole team, or even simply encase the bomb within the Earth itself. But there wasn't time. Instead, it was a three-by-five shield created out of survival instinct, which she immediately took cover behind.

With three seconds left, Raven could barely gather concentration enough for a protective bubble big enough to wrap around herself. She vanished behind a field of black, disappearing with an uncharacteristic look of fear on her stoic features. Beast Boy, in the meantime, turned into the most well-protected thing he could think of: a tortoise. Withdrawing into his shell, he braced himself for the worst. With enough time to think, either he or Raven could have busted the walls down. After all, what's two inches of steel to a potent telekinetic, to say nothing of a brachiosaurus? But there wasn't time.

At the two second mark, Cyborg abandoned the baffled jumble he was trying to pass off as tactical planning. Instead, he simply crouched down and crossed his arms in front of his body, ducking his head behind them and squeezing his organic eye shut. With nothing else to do, Starfire mimicked him, and even crouched down behind him for added protection. It wasn't cowardly, just good sense; Cyborg's Molybdenum body was a hell of a lot more durable than her own fairly-robust Tamaranian hide. They, too, might have been able to break through the barriers keeping them in. Cyborg's technical talents could have been put to use disarming the explosive. But alas, there simply wasn't time.

Robin had been closest to the Joker. Now he was closest to the bomb, a bomb with one second left on its timer. His friends were all behind him, and too far away to reach. If only he had more time...more TIME! But there was nothing he could do. He didn't know what kind of device was in front of them; whether it would release Joker's insanity gas, which would drive them mad, or simply explode, killing them all that way. There was no time to figure it out.

With zero seconds left, Robin wrapped himself in his titanium-weave cape and prayed.

**To Be Continued**


	4. Robin: Sidekick

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith Nine_

* * *

**Robin**: _Sidekick_

"You want to be part of this, you follow the rules."

Timothy Drake, an old man of twelve, clutched his practice staff with whitened knuckles as his feet carried him around the perimeter of the sparring ring. He could feel two pairs of eyes burning into the back of his new gi from outside the ring, belonging to the allies of his new mentor and making him more nervous than he already was. Swallowing his fear, he gritted his teeth and plunged ahead.

Batman deftly blocked Tim's clumsy shot. True, some might have confused the strong, lantern-jawed man with a staff for one Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy and corporate lay about, but even without cape and cowl, the sheer presence he exuded was unmistakable. This was no man to he faced; it was an urban legend, a dark spirit, a force for justice all wrapped up in one.

"Rule one," growled the Bat, "You give me everything you've got."

Daunted but not defeated, Tim continued his fruitless assault. He swung low, and Batman blocked. He swung high, and was stopped. Frustration started gnawing away at his focus. His swings became wilder and sloppier.

"Rule two," Batman continued, effortlessly parrying Tim's attacks, "Then you give me more."

Tim was being toyed with, and that irked the hell out of him. With a frustrated snarl, he charged forward, wielding the practice staff like a club.

"And rule three..." Batman sidestepped the charge and swept Tim's feet right out from under the boy. "I make the rules."

Tim growled and slammed his fist onto the mat...except it was no longer a mat beneath him. Cold concrete met fist, which was now wrapped in a green glove. In the blink of an eye, the ceiling became a dark red sky cast in perpetual twilight, and a stiff, stale breeze wafted through his raven hair. It brought with it the familiar smells of Gotham City. His home.

Slowly, Tim sat up. He rubbed his stomach through an armored tunic and shook the cobwebs from his attic. "Batman?" he mumbled.

"Close, but no banana."

A pale hand clasped his shoulders and hauled him to his feet. Spinning around, Tim came face to face with a broad yellow grin and drank deeply of the rank and fetid breath that rolled across his face. His fist darted forward out of instinct, but was stopped in its tracks by a single palm.

"Not bad, Junior," Joker growled between smiling teeth. He seemed oblivious to Tim's struggles as he clutched the Teen Wonder's fist in one hand and held him aloft by the scruff of his uniform with the other. Dangling, Tim was helpless as he endured the clown's soft, derisive laughter. "But did you really think you were in my league?"

Tim grasped at the hand on his collar and tried to pry it free, but Joker's grip was ironclad. He snarled in frustration as the clown carried him forward without effort. It was only when he saw the bustling night life of Gotham sprawled out below his swaying shoes that he realized they were on a rooftop.

Teetering over the edge, Tim was overcome with humiliation and fear as Joker whispered right into his ear, "Poor little songbird. Not much of a superhero, are you? Just a little sidekick trying to fly on his own."

"What are you...no!" Tim cried out as Joker lifted him over the lip of the building. Now there was nothing beneath the steel soles of his boots, save for the distant street below.

"Time to fly, birdie."

The Joker's laughter rose above the sound of Tim's terrified scream as he was released into the open sky. The wind rushed past his flailing body and howled in his ears as he sailed downward. The world vanished around him in a haze, and he wasn't sure if he had blacked out or simply gone blind from hysteria.

"Robin..."

Five different voices called out to him as he plunged into the endless dark depths. They murmured too softly for him to understand anything but his name, repeated over and over again. Tumbling through freefall, he cried out, sobbing for help, but there was no one to hear his pleas, no one around, but why did he hear voices, and didn't the voices seem similar and gosh it was a long way down why was he still falling and why couldn't he save himself and where did Batman go because he really needed-

* * *

"HELP!"

Robin bolted upright, and immediately regretted it as a searing pain lanced through his ribs. Between agonized gasps, he somehow recognized the interior of Titan Tower's medical bay, and dropped back onto the biobed. The soft hum and beep of his vital signs represented electronically on the panel above his head soothed him from the last lingering wisps of his nightmare.

"So. You're awake." Raven closed her book and rose from the chair next to his sickbed. She ran a small scanner across his heaving chest to double-check the results his biobed relayed, then nodded in satisfaction. No friendly conversation, no expression of relief...it was exactly the kind of reception he would have expected from the sorceress.

Groaning, he tried sitting up again, this time more slowly. Everything ached, and the room insisted on spinning in a counterclockwise fashion that tore at his stomach, but at least he was still alive. Whoever had dressed his wounds had removed him from his uniform and replaced it with a medical gown, but a quick check confirmed the presence of his mask around his eyes. "The Joker...?"

Raven shook her head. "No word. Cyborg thinks it was a sonic detonator that hit us." She hesitated a moment more before adding, "Everyone else is fine. You were out for almost twenty-four hours."

A deep sigh rattled from Robin's chest. "He was testing us. Me." And Robin had failed...

With book in arm, Raven started for the door. "I'd better tell the others you're up."

A realization struck Robin through his self-pity; Raven hadn't come in at his awakening. She had been there the whole time, maintaining a bedside vigil. That fact alone was enough to chase the lingering haze from his thoughts. "Florence Nightingale duty, Raven? It doesn't seem like your style to worry."

The sorceress stopped in the doorway and looked back. "I don't worry," she told him matter-of-factly. "It was just my shift."

"Should have known better." He chuckled as he laid back.

After a brief pause, Raven added, "But Starfire would have been inconsolable. We'd never hear the end of it if you died, and I'd never have a moment's peace. That's reason enough." She turned and left without further comment, raising her hood to mask the small, stifled smile that Robin saw anyway.

With the medical bay emptied, Robin was left alone with his thoughts and aches. The final moments of his dream haunted him each time he closed his eyes. He resigned himself to staring at the ceiling. Exhaustion flooded every pore of his body, and he just wanted to rest.

"Just a sidekick..." Joker's voice sneered in his head.

"On second thought," he groaned aloud as he sat back up, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed, "Let's get back to work."

* * *

Robin tugged at the gloves of his fresh uniform as he walked down the hall leading to the commons' room. Hunger rumbled fiercely in his belly, helping him ignore the kinks in his muscles. Planning and strategizing for the joker's next move took top priority, but it couldn't hurt to grab some leftovers from the fridge first.

As he approached the automatic double doors, he could hear voices drifting from the large commons area. The incoherent murmurings coalesced into discernable speech as he closed to within a few feet of the door, first and loudest among them a soft voice laden with concern. Without really knowing why, Robin paused a moment to listen with ear pressed to wall.

"Where is he?" Starfire demanded. "You said he was awake! Why is he not here?" She paced the length of the floor, flustered and biting her lip, all but hyperventilating as panic hammered through her veins.

Raven looked up from her tome and gazed impassively at the fuming alien. "I-"

"Perhaps he is hurt again," Starfire continued, "Or perhaps he is in need of assistance. Ohhhh, I knew I never should have allowed you to convince me to leave his side!"

"Yeah." Raven rolled her eyes. "How ever did we convince your unconscious body to let us drag you back to your room after sixteen hours of fussing over Robin brought you down? Quite the conundrum."

Cyborg sat in Robin's usual spot at the computer terminal. He swiveled away from the screen and ran a hand over the flesh on his scalp. "Look, Robin's fine," he told Starfire, cutting her protests short. "What we need to do is figure out what to do about our clown situation."

"Yes!" Starfire brightened in a flash. "Now that Robin has awakened, he may lead our efforts in apprehending this jokester person."

"Considering the head injury, maybe having Robin plan our next mission isn't the best way to go." Beast Boy sat with Terra at the dinner table, nursing a drink and staring off into space. His elfish features were twisted with an uncharacteristic frown made even stranger considering his proximity to Terra.

Crossing her arms, Terra leaned against the tabletop and snorted. Her scowl deepened as she added, "He didn't do such a hot job without the head injury."

Terra could have gotten the same reaction from Starfire if she had shot the Tamaranian through the foot. Starfire's head whipped around so fast, it was a wonder she didn't injure her neck. "WHAT? How dare you, you...Farble Glorbag!"

"Gesundheit?" Terra tilted her head and frowned.

"Robin leads us because he is...he..." She trembled in fury, unable to come up with any words, English or Tamaranian. Trails of green energy streamed from her hands ass he floated toward the geokinetic with shaking fists and grinding teeth.

Cyborg's quick thinking and quicker feet saved Terra from an early grave; he placed himself between them and stopped Starfire with a hand on her shoulder. "Calm down, Kory!"

A glutton for punishment, Terra slammed her palms on the table and stood up. "Wake up, bird watcher! We really stepped in it back there! He even knew it was a trap and we still-"

Now even Cyborg's amazing strength was barely enough to hold Starfire back. She snarled and clawed uselessly at Terra, but was held fast, only just barely. "How can you say such terrible...Beast Boy! Defend your friend!"

The changeling looked between the two furious females. I...you...she...Pass?" he pleaded meekly with a nervous smile and a hung head.

"If you were truly a Titan," Starfire spat, "You would trust Robin as we all do!"

"Trust him? Mister Mysterious Mask?" Terra snorted and leaned back, crossing her arms. "That's rich. Why should I trust someone who won't even show us his face?" Looking around, she added, "Why should any of us?"

There was dead silence in the commons room. Even Robin, eavesdropping outside, held his breath. The temperature of the room plummeted as Starfire's anger lit twin emerald fires in her eyes. Though her body quaked with fury, Starfire's voice was low and even. "What gives you the right?"

Praying that Starfire wouldn't kill Terra outright, Cyborg turned away from the alien and faced their newest member. "Look," he lectured, "Dude's got some issues, but he's solid. We all trust-"

"Red. X." The two words punched a hole in Cyborg's balloon, causing his massive shoulders to sink as his resolve deflated. Smug with triumph, Terra's ire didn't lessen an iota. "Didn't know I knew about that, did you?" she crowed angrily. "Gar told me all about it."

Starfire's glare shifted to Beast Boy in an instant. Even Cyborg toosed him an irritated scowl. With all the negative attention, Beast Boy became a tiny turtle and shifted back into his shell, hoping that the argument would forget him quickly.

"Okay, fine." Cyborg sighed, "I'll admit that-"

"That was a long time ago!" shouted Starfire. "You can not possibly-"

"Robin had his reasons," Cyborg said quickly, hoping to stop Starfire's latest rant. "I don't agree with what he did then. None of us do. But we're talking about 'now'. And right now, no one knows the Joker like Robin."

"Which is why we walked nose-first into a bomb?"

"Yes. I mean, no! I mean..." Rubbing the back of his neck, Cyborg fumbled for some kind of defense. Try though he did, Terra's words stank with a little too much truth. In his overzealous drive to take the Joker down, Robin had blown it, and gotten hurt in the process. It was only through their foe's whim that the rest of them weren't hurt, or worse.

Raven had been watching the fight in impassive silence. As Starfire drew in a deep breath to come to Robin's rescue, the sorceress' empathic senses flared up. Almost like a Geiger counter, she detected a sudden burst of anguish and guilt coming from out in the hall. It didn't take a genius to figure out who it was coming from.

The battle between Starfire and Terra resumed with renewed and heated insults and half-points blasted between both sides. Cyborg wisely chose to take cover with Beast Boy on the sidelines. Both noticed Raven rise from the couch and walk toward the door, though her eyes never strayed toward the colossal ruckus mounting between her teammates. "Where you goin'?" Beast Boy quipped.

"Somewhere quiet." With that, Raven slipped through the parted doors in a swirl of blue cloak and an upturned nose. Once the doors whooshed closed, she looked to her left and quirked an eyebrow at the very sight she had sensed and expected. "Robin."

Robin was curled up against the wall with his head cradled in his hands. His cape pooled behind him at his boots. He didn't appear to be crying, but the possibility didn't seem very far off as he looked up at Raven's entrance. Even without her powers, Raven could feel the deep depression radiating from him. "I...I heard." Was all he could say.

"Um..."

"Raven." Robin stood up. For the first time since she had known him, Raven realized just how young Robin really was. He always seemed so much older, so in control, but before her was a boy barely a year ahead of her, filled with doubt and fear. She watched him try to put on his aura of command, like some kind of ragged, ill-kempt cloak. He failed miserably. "Is it true? Do-"

"Look," Raven held up a hand. "I don't do the heart-to-heart stuff, okay?" She watched Robin's features fall, and heaved a deep sigh. Sometimes it didn't pay to have friends. Tossing a thumb over her shoulder, she said, "Bike's gassed up. We'll call you if anything comes up. Go clear your head."

Something passable as a smile crossed his lips. "Thanks."

"Don't tell anyone." Raven walked past him with her book in hand, never looking back as she stalked down the hall. "I have appearances to keep up." Without further comment, she disappeared into the shadows of the hall in a swirl of her navy cloak.

He glanced one last time at the doors, hearing the din of the room triple as Terra and Starfire continued to scream at one another, and decided to take Raven's suggestion. As angry, confused and hurt as he was, he wouldn't do the team any good at the moment. Keeping silent, he slunk away from the door, half-listening to Starfire's heartfelt defense that he didn't truly believe himself.

**To Be Continued**


	5. Robin: Close Encounters

* * *

**Teen Titans**  
**Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith Nine_

* * *

**Robin**: _Close Encounters_

The icy wind bit at his bare arms as Robin tore down the coastline atop his R-Cycle. After twenty hours of being comatose, he didn't mind. Any sensation was welcome compared to the black-hearted dreams that plagued him, more so if it helped wash away the bitter memory of his failure and his teammates' doubts. True, he might have expected it from Terra, their newest member, but the others? There hadn't been any particularly ringing endorsements from them on his behalf.

Why should they? Do you deserve it?

Robin gritted his teeth and cranked down on the throttle. Streaks of white flew beneath his boots as he roared toward the open horizon and its curtain of stars. Twists and turns flew past indiscriminately; there was no destination waiting for him in his mind. He let his wounded heart guide him while his mind spat obscenities at him.

Batman could have handled that situation without breaking a sweat. Nightwing wouldn't have gotten his friends blown up. Batgirl…

The voice trailed off as he thought of Barbara, hurt and broken at the hands of that bastard clown. How close had they come to having that happen to him? Or worse, what if Joker decided his little crusade would be easier without the rest of the Titans gumming up the works?

Next time it could be Cyborg, or Raven, or…

"Starfire." The roads and cliff sides became increasingly familiar to him. Operating by memory, he steered onto a small utility road leading up the top of the cliff face he drove along. It had been eighteen months, and yet the darkened rock seemed fresh as yesterday's memories to him. It was as if part of him had never left, and now patiently awaited recollection after a year and a half.

The R-Cycle bucked beneath him as road gave way to open pasture, yet untouched by the explosive growth of Jump City's hungry industry. Luckily, soft grass and the occasional stone were no match for Cyborg's genius handiwork. Within moments, he had reached the cliff's end, and his heart's destination. Rolling to a halt, Robin cut the engine and dismounted his bike.

He stood upon a large circle of grass that retained a fresh quality about it, more coifed and artificial than that around it. The S.T.A.R. Labs reclamation team had done their best to restore the area after claiming their otherworldly prize, but it didn't take a sharp eye to spot the sod lines or that slight dip in the landscape covering the filled-in crater. But Robin's eyes were skyward as he padded forward onto the young grass, searching the stars.

It's been a year and a half, Mister Big Shot. What've you accomplished? Leader of a crew of young gods? Only now, they've figured out just what you are; a little boy in a mask.

"You're wrong," Robin whispered aloud. He laid back, lacing his fingers behind his head and letting his weary, aching bones rest. "I'm the Teen Wonder. Trained by the world's greatest hero-"

To be his sidekick. Batman knew you were second banana material, and nothing else. You were a fill-in. A replacement.

Robin squeezed his eyes shut. "You're wrong," he murmured again. This time there wasn't a trace of conviction in his voice. Even he didn't believe himself.

Worthless.

"No."

Pathetic.

"No!"

Ordinary.

That last shot hurt worse than anything else. Fighting back tears, he reached up and ripped the mask from his face. The fabric resisted at first, and only cooperated once he calmed down and activated the hidden trigger in his glove, relaxing the flexible fibers. Tim sat up and hurled the domino mask to the ground. It sat there, propped up on a weed, staring at him with blank, mocking eyes.

"So what am I supposed to do?" Tim demanded from the mask. At its silence, he lunged forward onto his hands and knees and yelled, "What? You're so smart, figure it out! It's only the deadliest criminal genius on the planet. What's the holdup?"

The mask remained still.

"Chop-chop, bird brain!" snarled Tim. He leaned back on his haunches and waved a gloved hand at the stars. "The answer's not gonna fall outta the sky!"

His anger spent, Tim fell back onto the grass. His spine curved to match the indented bowl of earth he lay upon as he listened to the crash of the waves and watched the blanket of stars. "Not twice in one lifetime, anyway." He added ruefully.

A small spark of light silenced his whining. With widening blue eyes, he watched the glimmering point grow quickly as it tumbled along on an erratic course. Distant rumbling grew louder and closer until he could feel the vibrations beneath his Kevlar tunic and in his metal shod boots. His heart began racing in a panic as a glowing orb of fire streaked only a few feet overhead, riding a wave of deafening noise and intense heat that ripped at his skin. With one final, horrible blast, the fireball ripped into the Earth a few hundred yards from where Tim sat.

Tim was on his feet in a flash, pausing only long enough to reattach his mask before sprinting toward the expanding cloud of dust and soot. He retrieved and unfolded a collapsible breather mask, looping it over his face. "I've gotta stop teasing fate like that," he muttered over the ringing of his ears.

* * *

Beast Boy shook his head. "This doesn't feel right. Robin should be here." Despite possessing the coveted shotgun seat (having beaten Raven by a full half-second on the call), he displayed little joy.

The T-Car rocketed down city streets, gobbling up miles much like Cyborg gobbles, well, anything. Even the mighty plasma-driven engine beneath its gleaming hood strained at the speeds the titanium Titan drove at. It was lucky the police had already given them a clear path to follow, lest some poor pedestrian wind up the latest ding in Cyborg's pride and joy.

"Well, he ain't. Deal with it." Cyborg felt a tiny sliver of guilt for treating his best friend so gruffly, but there was no time for hesitation or sentiment. "'Sides, it's just a bank robbery. Silent alarm, confirmed call. Two armed suspects." With a pointed glare, he added, "I think we can handle this one."

"Okay, okay." Beast Boy backed down. His face was filled with puzzled agitation. "Jeez, what's eating you? I was just wondering where Robin was."

"You should be more worried about the Joker," Raven reminded him from the center seat of the back. Sandwiched between Starfire and Terra, who was bouncing with excitement, she reminded herself to hurl Beast Boy through a window the next time he decided to call shotgun. "Or if not him," she added, "Then at least the two armed men holding an entire line of police at bay."

City blocks rolled by green, wistful eyes as Starfire stared out the window. She kept hoping to catch a flash of impossibly fast red streaking to join in formation with them, but it never came. "Robin is well," she informed them. "We all bore witness to the absence of his motored cycle. He has merely stepped out, assuredly for good reason." Somewhere, no doubt, more important than being there, where she wanted him to be.

A line of red and blue lights flashed in the distance. Cyborg downshifted his treasured baby and pulled off to the side, parking near a SWAT Team van. "Cut the chatter, y'all. Time for business."

"Let's rock." Terra deadpanned, throwing the door open.

A groan rattled from Raven's throat as she followed. "Do you have to say that every time?"

* * *

Blinded by dust, Robin guided himself carefully across the uneven terrain, following the intense blast of heat. His hand returned to his utility belt and withdrew a palm-sized scanner. Minutes later, he stood at the edge of an enormous crater. The airborne earth began to settle, and through the haze Robin could just make out the glowing red contours of a circular object lodged into the ground.

Robin stared at the grounded celestial object for what felt like forever. A gentle ocean breeze cleared the air and revealed the superheated curves of the crater, rapidly cooling into rough glass. At its center sat a perfect sphere, half-mired in the dirt and slowly fading from bright red to a dull, slightly charred silver.

He checked the red and gold scanner sitting in his hand and then checked it again; according to the device, the sphere had already cooled to tolerable levels. He had only personally encountered such a thing once before, and in light of all the troubles the Thanagarians and White Martians had given Earth, he had to remind himself of that other, fateful ET encounter that had changed his life for the better.

Carefully, the Teen Wonder made his way down the steep edge of the fresh crater. His metal boots slid against the smooth, muddy glass as he skated down the precarious incline. The slope forced his gait into a stumbling jog as it leveled out. He caught himself against the side of the sphere, and was relieved to find his sensors' claim to be true: Insane though it was, the sphere felt cool to the touch, and tingled through his gloves.

The instant Robin touched the sphere, a seam appeared in its flawless surface with a soft hiss of air. The seam grew as a section of the hull rolled outward. Before Robin could even gasp in surprise, a large green shape fell out from the new hatch in a wave of acrid smoke.

By humanoid standards, the creature was hideous, as it wasn't humanoid in the least. Lime green and semi-translucent, the creature's organs were visible where the tattered remains of its red armor was no longer intact. A trio of eyestalks lofted its ocular organs above the bulge sticking from the top of the shell, and swiveled about as if in a panic. Foul-smelling liquid dribbled from breaks in its skin, as well as pair of amorphous openings in its face that Robin could only assume were mouths.

"Hello?" Robin stuttered, backing away slowly.

The creature became aware of Robin's presence at once. It undulated weakly in his direction, reaching out with a scorched tentacle. "Preeal, taq na Avoir se jal."

Robin stumbled and fell, flinching at the alien's slimy, smelly touch. "Okay, okay," he insisted gently, "Whatever you say. The authorities-"

"Preeal!" the alien shrieked. "Preeal, Avoir na jaka Jor-ger!" Festering breath rolled from the creature's mouths as it yelled into Robin's face. Then, the glimmer faded from its eyes, and a hideous gurgle rumbled from its throat. It took all of Robin's strength to catch the creature and ease it to the ground.

The R-Scanner blipped and beeped as Robin ran the device over the alien's still form. He had never turned it off, but a few close scans of his own wouldn't hurt before the military came swarming in. "Rest in peace," he murmured, touching its exo-armor lightly.

His finger caught the edge of a small, circular break in the smooth shielding. Curious, he brought the R-Scanner closer to investigate. Though the rest of the alien's vitals (what he assumed were vitals, at any rate) were nonexistent, there was a small spark of heat buried inside its body. And it was surfacing. Fast.

"What the…"

The skin of the alien burst open in an orgy of gelatinous green slime and split organs. Robin fell backward with a cry of terror. He immediately reddened at the cowardly scream, and wiped the green goop from the lenses of his mask in time to see a small brown shell emerge from the alien's armor. The dusky, slimy shape shot forward faster than he could react.

Robin felt an impact on his chest. Then there was a blinding, stabbing pain. With one final shriek of agony, the Teen Wonder passed out cold.

* * *

"Everyone, stay frosty." Cyborg hugged the wall, sliding along a smooth eggshell paint job with his sonic cannon at the ready. The rubber soles of his metal feet had never seemed loud to him before, but now he could feel each step ringing in his ears like the crash of cymbals.

"Call me Mister Arctic." Beast Boy morphed into a penguin and belly-slid along glossy tile.

"Penguins live in the Antarctic." Raven muttered, hovering near the ceiling. Starfire glided next to her, focusing intently on the hallway ahead. Terra lurked below, marching behind the boys and covering the rear. There wasn't much in the way of earth beneath their feet, but she could manipulate the manufactured marble lining the walls in a pinch.

Penguin Boy glanced up with a playful, quizzical look before morphing back into his human state. "Really? Don't polar bears eat-"

"No."

"Could we save the geography for later?" Terra hissed.

The police had been more than willing to let them through the barricade. So far, whatever teams they sent in to either negotiate or exterminate lost contact within minutes. No reports, no screams, no nothing. Just silence. So, with nothing to lose, the lieutenant in charge had let the Titans take a crack at it. Worst came to be, he would be out one meta-team, and there were always plenty of those cropping up everywhere.

The hallway began widening into the main lobby. It was there that Cyborg halted his team's progress, hiding in the shadows at the corner of the entrance. The air smelled a little stale, as if someone had set off a gas grenade. Indeed, the room retained a hazy quality that made sight difficult. He could see a group of roughly four in the center of the room, each wearing a blue and black uniform; they must have been the missing officers. Further back was the barred-off counter. Dark shapes lurked behind, presumably the tellers turned hostages. But there was no sign of the gunmen.

Cyborg's organic eye frowned. Something didn't set right with him. To the determined person, there must have been a dozen ways out of the building without catching the notice of the police. But the lobby held no signs of a struggle, save for the blackened smog in the air. "Starfire," he whispered, "You and I are on point. Raven, Terra, cover the flanks. Beast Boy, you're our backup."

"Roger Doger!" he chirped, crouching low with stubby fangs bared.

A deep breath whistled past Cyborg's teeth, then exploded into "Titans, GO!" With that cry, he and Starfire jetted forward, streaking straight for the cops lying in the center of the room. The other girls split up, and Beast Boy drove right behind them with the titanic tremors of a Rhinoceros.

Again, nothing. As Cyborg swept his sonic arm across the room, it became abundantly clear that there wasn't anything for him to shoot. His cannon mechamorphed back into a hand, which then reached down to roll one of the cops over. "Let's make sure everyone's…" Upon re-facing the downed officer, his voice trailed off, and his flesh grew deathly pale. Distantly, he heard Starfire's tiny squeak of fear, and couldn't rightly blame her.

Raven swept in, rolling through the hanging mist on her navy cloak and touching down lightly next to the teller stations. "I'm not getting anything from the over here," she called out. Fearless, she wiped at the clinging soot on the barred glass. Dark shapes lurked beyond, but she couldn't make them out until she cleared the window. "I can't…"

Her hand wiped past, revealing a row of gleaming teeth dangling below wide, deadened eyes. Raven gasped and stumbled back, staring with horror at the grinning face belonging to what a nametag identified as Jennifer, a lovely young clerk who would have been happy to help Raven with her banking needs if only she could stop smiling.

"Raven, what-Holy!" Terra looked across the room, and saw the same sight Raven cringed at plastered on the fallen cops' faces. One by one, Cyborg spun them over. It was the same with all four. "What…"

Cyborg tossed the dead officer aside. There was nothing more they could do for him, or any of the others. "We need to go."

Beast Boy couldn't see around his friend's wide shoulders. He tried jumping up and down to get a good look at what had everyone else spooked. "What? Why?"

"Go! Everyone!" Cyborg grabbed up his friend by the waist and spun, barreling toward the door.

Starfire was already on the move, leaving a trail of green fire in the air. She was nearly to the hallway when a dark shape swung from the shadowy ceiling and kicked the Tamaranian squarely in the ribs. Starfire tumbled to the ground, hacking and moaning as she skidded to a halt on the smooth tile.

A lithe, shapely female figure dropped squarely in their way, hands on hourglass hips and face twisted in a sick grin. "Leavin' so soon, pumpkins?"

Behind them, a low chuckle turned them all in an instant. One of the dark shapes behind the bulletproof glass rounded the counter, moving in a slow stroll with echoing heel in the empty room. "Now, that's just poor manners, kids," a gravelly voice admonished the Titans. "If you ever want to play in the big leagues, you'll have to learn better manners than that. Even Superman knows the rules."

The Titans shuffled back to back as Joker moved forward, squeezing them between himself and Harley Quinn. "Clown…" Raven growled, glowing with dark anger.

"Really. Harley and I degrade ourselves, putting on these drab affairs and cavorting like common criminals…" He pulled a ski mask from his purple jacket, holding it at arm's length like a dead raccoon before tossing it aside. "The least you could do is stay for a while. Friendly chit-chat, and all that."

"Mistah J," Harley frowned, cartwheeling around the tightly-packed quartet, "The brat ain't here."

Joker merely shook his head as Harley rolled back to his side. Before him, the Titans pulled their weapons and respective powers into play, ready to attack. He could read the fear on their features as plain as any billboard. "Well, Harl, I suppose we'll have to make do with what we have."

Cyborg swallowed, and prepared for the worst.

**To Be Continued**


	6. Robin: Black Triumph

* * *

**Teen Titans**  
**Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith Nine_

* * *

**Robin**: _Black Triumph_

Robin awoke in a haze, unsure of where he was or how long had passed. Aside from a light headache, he felt fine. His vision snapped a field of stars into focus as his fingers flexed against a gritty, slightly warm surface. After a fruitless check for bleeding, broken bones or bumps, he sat up carefully, rubbing his head and trying to recall his last few minutes of consciousness.

"An alien…" His lips felt like lumps of gelatin as he murmured aloud, ordering his thoughts. Looking to his left, he saw the oozing, partially-collapsed and very odorous corpse of the unfortunate creature lying a few feet from the hatch of its fantastic craft. Both were as he remembered them, which meant no one had arrived yet to investigate the wreck. Pressing ahead into his memory, he began slowly unpeeling the events leading up to his 'nap'. "Something came…out. Out of the creature. It hit me, then…"

With growing horror, Robin traced a path from his head down his armored tunic. There, at the point where the strange object had struck him, was a circular hole, a hole punched through nearly two inches of Kevlar. Pressing further, he dug his gloved fingertips into his ribcage. A little exploration led to his discovery of a tiny lump nestled comfortably between his ribs. It was slightly squishy to the touch and tickled at his provocation.

"What the hell…" Robin looked down at the round disk of flesh peering out at him from his damaged tunic. There was no cut, no bleeding, gaping entry wound. Just a small lump that would have escaped his notice unless he had been searching for it specifically. It took several minutes of staring and poking at the minuscule protrusion until his brain finally made the connection, and several more just to accept the prospect. Once that was done, his mind produced the most appropriate and proactive response it could come up with. Considering the circumstances, it was quite a good response:

"Holy shit."

A soft, musical nine-toned beeping caught his attention and dragged it away from his startling dilemma before he could mount a proper case of hysteria. In a daze, Robin pulled his communicator and drew it to his face. "I'm here," he said dully. "What's the problem?"

Cyborg's voice shot back in a panic. _"Where have you been, man? I've been calling you for the past hour!"_

A glance back at the extraterrestrial craft and its pilot left Robin wondering exactly how to explain something so incredibly, stupidly unbelievable; two alien wrecks in the same acre in as many years? "I had…have," he amended with a pat to his lump, "A situation. Is everything okay?"

If the thought of playing host to an off-world visitor chilled Robin's blood, then Cyborg's words could have frozen it in his veins. _"It's the Joker. He was holding up a bank downtown. We tried to stop him, but…he was ready for us."_ There was no mistaking the bitterness in Cyborg's speech. The human-machine hybrid was used to attacking problems head on and solving them with pure determination. The Clown Prince of Crime's wily ways were clearing getting to him. _"He got us good."_

All business, Robin broke into a run for the R-Cycle. With new funding, the Joker's plans could balloon into a nightmarish catastrophe, more so than it already was. With a sickening jolt, Robin wondered exactly what he had been thinking, stepping out in the middle of such a crisis. Clearing his head? Batman wouldn't have cleared his head. He would have kept going until the threat was over, and after still. But no, he had let a few bad words and a little lost sleep get the better of him. "What'd he get away with, Cy?"

_"Not what. Who."_ Robin stopped dead in mid-sprint as Cyborg continued in an apologetic tone. _"He didn't take a dime. I think…I think he wanted you. And when you didn't show, he got ticked. Said something about settling for the next best thing."_

Choking on his own rage and fear, Robin raised the communicator until it was pressed to his mouth. "Who?" he whispered hoarsely, already knowing the answer.

_"We tried our best, Robin, I swear! She's-"_

The world began spinning uncontrollably. Robin fell to his knees and forced the rising bile back down, and gripped the earth in a panic. His communicator fell to the ground, forgotten as he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Kory…" he moaned.

* * *

"What is this place? Why have you taken me?" Minutes after her revival, Starfire had regained her voice and was already putting it to good use. She hung from a simple rig of chains, suspended in what appeared to be another warehouse. A slight sensation of pressure pressed into her temples with mild warmth, but she was otherwise fine. There was a single circle of light illuminating the otherwise shadowy building, hanging over a long table overflowing with a myriad of technological equipment. Some of it was easy to classify as weapons; long cannons, small hand-held lasers, and the like were littered among other pieces no so easily identified.

Under normal circumstances, she could have burned through the chains, or simply burst them with her otherworldly strength. But the position she hung in stole her leverage away, and for some reason, she could not produce a Starbolt. And try though she did, focusing in on dozens of different, joyous memories, she could not rise an inch against the bonds. She was helpless.

A sinister voice snaked from the darkness, answering her call: "I really should thank ol' Lexxie for those metahuman inhibitors. Take's the fight right out of them." From the black, a pale, pasty face emerged, like a specter seated atop a garish purple suit and topped with green-black hair. A second ghostly visage followed fast with an expression of puppy love set beneath a domino mask. This ghost floated above a feminine figure wrapped in a skintight red and black ensemble, and drifted through the pitch with the grace of a dancer.

Starfire was rocket to her core with terror and loathing all at once. "You!" she exclaimed. Her struggles tripled as she demanded, "Set me free at once! You are a very, very bad clown!"

"Bad? Moi?" A hand flew to his vest as he approached the captive heroine. "Why, I'm hurt, li'l lady. That you could be so quick to judge…"

"Kids today," Harley clucked her tongue sadly. "No respect."

Reaching Starfire, the Joker took her by the shoulders and swung her closer, chains and all. She squeaked in fear, silently cursing both her cowardice and her helplessness. "I think once we get to know each other, you'll see I'm just oodles of fun."

His yellowing smile loomed before her face, and it was all she could do not to whimper. "I…What do you want from me?" Again she tried to sound brave and demanding, and again her voice failed her.

The Joker seemed genuinely surprised at the question. He pulled away, but maintained the grip on her shoulders. "Want?" he asked. "What could I possibly want from you?"

"But-"

A condescending smile spread across the clown's horrible features and sent a chill up Starfire's spine. "My dear," he explained sweetly to her, "You are nothing more than a means to a very circuitous end." Leaning in, his voice became a whisper. "I break you, I break Robin. I break the songbird, and in turn, I break the Bat." He patted her on the cheek. "Understand?"

Realization dawned on Starfire, and with it came a cold, burning fury deep in the pit of her stomach. A new hate bubbled in her loving, lovely green eyes as she glared at the garish villain and told him, "You will never break me."

"Oh?" Joker actually seemed curious. "And why is that?"

Trembling with rage, Starfire stared him down and spoke in a flat, spiteful voice. "For nearly ten stellar cycles," said she, "I was a slave to creatures a thousand times worse than you. They brutalized my in ways your imagination could not begin to fathom. They raped my body and my spirit for pure sport. I was not even a pet to them; I was a plaything, used and discarded at their whim." Angry tears welled up in her eyes as she glared at the impassive clown. "And after all that, I still escaped. They could not break me. How do you presume to do so?"

A moment of terse silence rode the coattails of Starfire's impassioned speech. Finally, Harley Quinn said, "She's startin' t'bore me, Mistah J."

"Yes," Joker agreed with a yawn. Suddenly, his features brightened. The space between them vanished as he grasped at the flower on his lapel. "I think she needs an attitude adjustment," he cackled, giving the flower a tug. A spray of pinkish gas erupted from the flower and blasted Starfire in the face. The young teen choked and gagged as the trademark gimmick of the Joker that had driven hundreds of innocents irreparably insane now flooded her lungs.

"Smell the pretty flower," Joker crowed with a maniacal laugh.

* * *

What had started as a leisurely drive to clear his head had become a frantic race against time in just a handful of seconds. Mounted once more on his bike, Robin soared over the patchwork coastline road at ridiculous speeds. He had no leads, no idea where he was going, and no concept of how much time they had left. Only one fact remained steadfast in his mind; Starfire was in grave peril, and one way or another, that peril wouldn't last.

_"We've put in a call to the League."_ Cyborg spoke on through Robin's obliviousness. The roar of the T-Car's engine trickled in through their communications' link, barely audible above the R-Cycle's bellowing howl. _"The Martian dude said they'd have a team here in an hour. Something about an earthquake in Peru, or-"_

"She doesn't have an hour!" Robin snapped. A sudden thought pierced the veil of his anguish. He ordered, "Put a trace on her communicator."

An exasperated sigh hissed through the link. Now Raven's voice filtered through, laced with a concern that was alien to her normal monotone_. "That's the first thing we tried."_

"Turned off?"

_"Worse."_ Robin's Heads-Up Display flickered to life, overlaying the road ahead of him with a map of Jump City. An instant later, over two dozen Titan symbols blinked onto the map, arranged in the distinctive pattern of a smiling face; a pair of Ts for eyes in the north, and the rest sweeping across the south end of town in a grinning arc_. "Joker's played another trick on us. Her signal reads from every one of these locations. It would take hours just to check half of them-"_

"She isn't at any of them," Robin insisted. He gave in to a brief instant of despair at the thought of Starfire held in Joker's pale clutches. Worse still, he knew he could find her, if only he could figure out Joker's game. Batman could have figured it out. Hell, the Joker was probably hiding her in plain sight, right under his…

Robin locked the R-Cycle's brakes, slamming the cycle to a screeching halt that almost took him over the edge of a cliff. He stared at his HUD for a moment, lost in a trance. Raven's voice called to him from the speaker hidden in his helmet, but he was far removed from its influence. Instead, he watched the face stare back at him. Without so much as a sound, it whispered Joker's whereabouts to him, insisting that it knew where he could find Starfire, if only he would trust it.

_"-didn't copy that, Robin."_ Cyborg finally broke through Robin's stupor, bringing him back into the night_. "You got something?"_

"Under my nose!" Renewed vigor swept through Robin's exhausted body as he pulled up a miniature keyboard from his bike's hidden gadgetry. His fingers flew as he searched through the city registry, looking at a list of buildings in one particular block located squarely in the middle of Joker's mocking map-face. "He's hiding her right under my nose!"

_"Wha?"_

* * *

The gas rolled across Starfire's face. She coughed and blinked back tears as Joker waited expectantly, a growing smile pasted on his chin. That very same smile dropped to the floor as the heroine heaved the last of his gas from her lungs and glared in defiance. "Is that to be my torture?" she challenged mockingly. "Stinky gas? Cohabitation with Beast Boy has more than prepared me to deal with foul odors!"

Joker exchanged glances with his sidekick. Harley shrugged, helpless and clueless. "She don't look crazy, boss."

Mulling the problem over for a moment, the Joker smacked himself on the forehead. "Of course! Miserable aliens…probably doesn't do a thing to her. Well, no matter." Rather than upset, Joker seemed pleased. It wasn't every day that such an opportunity came to him. Such experiences had to be cherished, even milked. Besides, he was on a vacation. What was the harm in a little fun?

"Your Jokester tricks will not work on me!" Starfire seemed pleased at her small victory. Her words grew bold and her chest puffed with Tamaranian pride as she stated, "You will not break me, just as you will not break Robin."

"Maybe not." A flick of the wrist brought a small playing card to Joker's glove. Its edge glinted in the distant light, calling to Starfire as she swung gently in her bonds. All her prior bravado drained away alongside the color in her face. "But if tricks don't strike your fancy," he sneered, approaching her slowly, "I guess we'll just do things the old-fashioned way."

* * *

"C'mon…" Robin urged silently, "C'moonnnnnnnnn…" The city listings scrolled past at inhuman speeds as the map zoomed in. Tiny rectangles representing buildings expanded, accompanied by names and addresses for each. And suddenly, the words jumped right out at him. "Got it!"

_"Got what?"_ Cyborg demanded. _"Dude, you know-"_

"Happy Jack's Confectionaries Distribution Center." Robin said.

_"Eh?"_

Revving the motor, Robin brought the R-Cycle back onto the road as he repeated the name. "Shut down for almost six months now. That's where he is." With a small smile fueled from his ember of pride, he added, "It's the nose." He fed the T-Car the address just as the city's edge came into view.

_"We'll be there in ten."_ Cyborg said reassuringly.

Robin growled. "And I'll be there in four."

_"Don't take him on al-"_

He cut the feed and cranked the throttle harder. The wind howled around him as he approached Jump City's residential suburbs at double the speed limit. It would be mere moments until he was in the city's concrete heart.

_My name is Robin. Ro. Bin._

If anything happened to her, he would never forgive himself. She was still so new to this world. There was so much left to show her, so many things to share with her. Every new experience, no matter how mundane, seemed fresh and new through her eyes.

_Rah…bihn…_

He wove in and out of traffic and ran through red lights, ignoring the angry honking and shouts that trailed behind him. Panic spun before his eyes as the city blocks flew past. Life without Starfire danced across his imagination, stomping on his sensibilities. There would be no more midnight discussions. No more stories, with long discussions on new words and Earth customs that, only moments before, didn't seem as strange as Starfire pegged them to be.

_That's right. Robin. Who're you?_

No more trips out of the Tower to explore the simple, exciting world in Jump City. He would never get the chance to take her across the planet, showing her everything Earth had to offer. He would never see her glorious smile shining in the sun, or the way her presence lit up the entire room without even trying.

_Krabtak nicto Koriand'r negall t'wan._

But worst of all, he would never get to tell her any of this. That right moment he had been waiting for might never come now, because, like an idiot, he had waited for things to be perfect.

_That's, uh…that's a long name. But I guess it's better than 'That Shooting-Star Girl From the Big Fireball Crater'._

Her name passed across his lips in a breath as he approached the abandoned candy warehouse. The rotund head of a giant, weather-worn clown grinned from its roof. His target near, Robin shook the past free of his mind. If Starfire was to have a future, she needed Robin there in the present.

_Star…Fire…_

_Hey, that's kind of catchy. You like it?_

Slash. Scream.

'**_Everything is beautiful…'_**

Slash. Scream.

**_'In its own way…'_**

Slash. Scream.

There was no doubting Starfire's courage, nor her stamina. She had gone the first ten minutes of the Joker's administrations without so much as a whimper as the sick clown tore her skin apart with his playing card. But even she, a battle-hardened warrior of Tamaran, could take only so much. Her bitten lip let slip first a small series of yelps, then increasingly more, until her screams filled the hollow warehouse.

Nearby, Harley Quinn leaned against the table filled with technology. A small radio sat in her hands, spewing out a garbled classic for Joker to work with. Her head bopped to the upbeat song as she watched the blood pool beneath Starfire's feet.

Slash. Scream.

Starfire no longer had any concept of time. The Joker's blade was masterful, lingering at times and snapping quickly at others. There was no rhyme to his work, no pattern. She simply felt the blade enter in one spot, and once the pain had dulled, it tore into her again. Like the artisan he was, Joker never struck a major artery or sliced deep enough to damage her internally. Starfire wasn't close to death, not from that. But the blood…it seeped into her eyes, matted her thrashing hair, ran along her raw wrists, colored her violet uniform a deep scarlet, dribbled past her shrieking lips. Her mind could no longer focus on anything but the pain. The defiance that once graced her words was gone, replaced with Tamaranian curses and sobbing pleas to X'Hal.

"You sure this is gonna get us Batman, Puddin'?" Harley called from the table.

Joker stopped his administrations for a moment and turned back to his lackey. The permanent grin on his face was even wider than before. "To be honest, Harl, I'm having too much fun to care. Heh!" He dissolved into peals of laughter before slicing sharply across the bridge of Starfire's nose, splitting the cartilage and eliciting a wail of agony from the girl.

The loading dock doors of the old warehouse exploded inward without warning, kicking up a wave of dust as they collapsed. From within the tiny maelstrom of dirt and debris, a single pair of soulless white eyes glared at the solitary circle of light in the building's center. "JOKER!"

Joker dropped his card and rubbed his hands together gleefully. His previous victim was immediately forgotten in place of this new wrinkle. "Ah, Robin. I'm glad you made it. Were my directions simple enough?"

"This ends," Robin snarled, stalking forward into the darkness. "The threats, the games…"

Joker's smile never wavered. "Oh," he added with an upraised finger and a snicker, "Let's not forget the thievery, too. I snagged a doozy of a deal on the way over, you know."

He brought his hands together and clapped smartly. The illumination of the building jumped immediately at his beck and call, rising to a normal level. Now, without the darkness to cloak them, Robin could see a quartet of massive cannons mounted in each corner of the warehouse's ceiling. With a soft, mechanical whir, the futuristic guns sprang to life, each shifting positions so that they rested dead center on the Teen Wonder.

"Lex keeps the neatest toys. And they're Clapper-compatable, too! Watch this." Joker clapped again. His smile never wavered.

Robin barely leapt out of the way in time as four separate beams of yellow death struck his previous position. The smell of ozone choked the air, and a deafening whine blared from each cannon. Only the Joker's laughter carried over the noise. Unperturbed by the miss, the beams spread out and began sweeping the warehouse floor, tracking Robin's movement with ease.

Another beam singed the hair on his arm as Robin leapt and twisted out of the way, only to tumble backward to avoid being sliced apart by its twin. The floor grew cluttered with carbonized streaks left in the beam's wake, creating a map of Robin's movements across the floor. It became apparent that the cannons were not only tracking him, they were beginning to anticipate his every move. Slowly but surely, the cannons began boxing him in.

"ROBIN!" Starfire shrieked as one of the lasers sliced through his cape. The heavy fabric tumbled to the ground, glowing at the incision.

His options were running low, and Robin knew it. He hand-sprung over a sizzling yellow beam and flew across the floor, landing atop Joker's ill-gotten equipment next to a very surprised Harley Quinn. Both of them stared each other down for an instant, before the hungry laser cannons caught up with Robin. Hero and villain leapt away, barely escaping the dancing beams. They gobbled up the LexCorp technology, overloading a half-dozen of the more volatile prototypes. Billions of dollars of equipment went up in an enormous fireball and a blinding flash that threw Joker's lackey halfway across the room. She struck the wall, and then continued on, unimpeded.

Whatever sensors guiding the lasers were momentarily baffled by the explosion, allowing Robin a brief opportunity he didn't intend to waste. A group of electrodiscs found their way into his hand in an instant, and he hurled them without looking, trusting his aim. Four more explosions rocked the warehouse as each cannon overloaded, adding to the hail of glowing debris. Robin rode the shockwave across the room and rolled upright to stand before the Joker.

…who already had another laser aimed at his chest.

Frozen in shock, Robin could only stare at the strange pistol pressed into his ribs. He heard Starfire screaming his name off in the distance as the Joker grinned. Everything moved in slow motion, including Joker's mouth as he spoke three simple words.

"Bye-bye, Birdie."

An intense blast of heat struck Robin square in the chest. He waited for a tunnel of white light, or an angel come to collect him, or even pure, simple nothingness. Instead, all he saw was the Joker, whose smile was faltering rapidly. Looking down, Robin saw a second hole in his tunic, with what looked like sunburned skin beneath it.

"What the…" Joker pulled the trigger again, but this time Robin reacted fast enough; He knocked the barrel aside, and the shot went wide toward the door Robin had made on his way in.

With a fantastic sense of timing, Cyborg led a barreling charge through that very same door. His sonic cannon vibrated with anticipation as he and the other Titans stormed Joker's fortress. "Teen Titans, G-WHOA!" Cyborg reeled back, almost crushing Raven as a pencil-thin beam of energy streaked past his ear and burned a neat hole in the warehouse wall.

Joker's laser clattered to the floor as Robin slapped it aside. For a moment, the two adversaries could only stare at each other, one with a look of confusion and the other silently seething. It was a soft, feeble whimper that drew Robin's attention away. He saw a field of reddening flesh and torn clothing hanging from a primitive rack suspended from the ceiling above a tepid puddle of blood. A pair of pleading green eyes stared back at him from the mess, streaming tears as split, bloodied lips tried to form his name.

Something snapped inside the boy as his narrowed eyes zeroed in on the Joker. The clown's smile was gone now, replaced with a quiver in his voice. "I was…only joking." He offered feebly.

Robin's metal boot connected with Joker's jaw, lifting him off his feet. Still in mid-air, the clown doubled over at the boy's fist with a sickening snap. Robin moved like lightning, pounding as hard as he could and driving the Joker to the ground. A scream of rage roared from his throat with each blow. His fists were nothing more than a blur of green.

Cyborg rushed to Robin and threw himself upon his friend. He wrapped his arms around the Teen Wonder's waist and heaved back, lifting him clean off of Joker's broken body. "You got him, Robin. Back off!"

"I'll kill him!" Robin howled, "I'll kill him!"

"Dude," the larger teen hissed, "Look at her. Look at her! She needs help."

Robin's flailing grew still as he looked back at his best friend. Starfire struggled pathetically agsint the chains as her cuts and bruises bled openly, dribbling onto the floor. "R…Rrrrro…" She tried to speak, but it was evident that the pain prevented anything other than the tiny whimper at the back of her throat. She hung there, begging without words, swinging back and forth feebly.

The very sight broke Robin's heart anew. He sunk to his knees, suddenly exhausted all over again. With their leader down, Cyborg stepped into his shoes. "BB, get Star down." The metal man took his younger friend into his arms, feeling Robin sag against him. "Raven, Terra, secure these two. It's time to go home."

Beast Boy examined Starfire's bonds, pulling gingerly until he freed her. The oozing wounds covering her body fanned his hatred back into flame, so much so that he was tempted to reach over and finish the job the Teen Wonder had started. He looked upon the fallen clown with contempt barely held in check. "Robin sure did a number on Sir Laffs-A-Lot and Lady Grin-avere here."

Cyborg watched the red seeping into Beast Boy's uniform, then looked down at the nigh-unconscious teen in his arms. BB's words stung with a bitter irony. "Yeah," he muttered, "We win."

* * *

"That," Terra said with a mix of awe and disgust, "Is a really, really, really big bug."

A gigantic spacecraft sat atop Titans Tower. It possessed a definite insect theme in its design, with large domed structures for a cockpit, long, spindling landing struts, and a pair of antennae forming its communications' array high atop the fuselage. Its owner currently leaned against one of the landing legs, playing Rock-Paper-Scissors with one of the many allies he had brought along.

"Paper beats Rock, Boost." The pilot and engineer of the ship, a man dressed in a blue and black hooded jumpsuit, grinned at his opposite number. His laughing eyes sparkled behind a pair of goggles. "Y'know, for a guy from the future, you sure do suck."

Booster Gold's eyes rolled behind his visor. His gold armor shimmered in the spotlighting atop the Tower, which provided ample illumination for his crushing defeat. At his shoulder, his modified maintenance drone bobbed patiently, observing the exchange with rapt attention.

"It seems highly unlikely that paper's tensile strength would be a match for the average mineral composition." Like all his others, Skeets stated this observation and analysis with a blank face and just a touch of derisive sarcasm. "Furthermore-"

"Furthermore," Booster broke in with gritted teeth, "Bug Boy here should get ready for a crushing defeat." He struck his fist out. "Best thirteen out of twenty-five, bud."

Beetle shrugged. "Your funeral."

Terra shook her head at the exchange, wondering just what kind of community she had become a part of when she joined the Titans. Clearly, these two weren't exactly A-List material. But the real top dogs hadn't let Joker's capture go unnoticed. Flash stood near the vehicle's ramp, casually braced against the craft. He appeared relaxed, but Terra had watched him disappear for a few seconds, only to return with the box of Chinese food he was currently slurping on. Who knew what 'relaxed' was for him? Near Flash stood Wonder Woman herself. She appeared anxious, as if aching for a fight. The chatter coming from Blue Beetle and Booster Gold seemed to be making it worse.

All in all, Terra was glad she wasn't the only Titan on the roof. "Can we hurry this along?" Beast Boy complained loudly. "I'd really like to get the psychotic villain out of our home."

"Relax, kid," Booster assured the young hero as he lost his thirteenth round of Rock-Paper-Scissors, "We'll get the big, bad clown out of that grassy rug of yours soon enough."

Wonder Woman frowned. "This is no laughing matter, Booster. The Joker is not someone to be taken lightly."

"Couldn't be that bad." Blue Beetle paused in the middle of his victory dance. "The goobers didn't even need Batman."

"Hey! Number One, we are not goobers!" Beast Boy leaned in and whispered to Terra, "What's a goober?" Then, before she could answer, he added, "And you're damn right we did fine without Batman! Why should we need Batman?"

"Where. Is. Robin."

Beast Boy leapt three feet into the air as the shadows behind him growled. The blackness melted away, revealing a dark cape and cowl with narrow, glowing eyes locked in on the emerald shape shifter. The figure approached Beast Boy and Terra, looming over them and filling the air with a static charge of fear.

"Heh. Batman." Beast Boy extended a limp, shaky hand which went unnoticed. "Um…"

"I'll go get him." Terra offered. Anything to escape the awkward gathering atop their roof.

She returned Beast Boy's long face with an apologetic smile, and silently mouthed a 'sorry' to him before making for the door. Before she got halfway, the Joker emerged from the open hatch. Only hours ago, this would have been enough to send Terra into a fit of hysterics, but now things were different. Now he moved parallel to the ground, suspended on a gurney of green energy and propelled by the will of John Steward, the League's resident Green Lantern.

"Look alive, people," he called out, keeping Joker aloft through sheer force of will. "Supervillain coming through."

Elongated Man followed close behind. His hand had been stretched and enlarged to encompass the struggling Harley Quinn. One of his fingers circled around her jaw and kept her silent, a courtesy the rest of his teammates and allies appreciated greatly. "Don't forget your side order." He caught sight of Batman from the corner of his eye and hoisted Harley higher for him to see. "Here they are, Bats. Hot off the kids' table, no extra charge."

"Knock it off," Lantern snapped. He gazed approvingly at Terra and Beast Boy, giving the pair a nod. "These kids did all right. Maybe they should consider applying for League membership." With a roll of his glowing eyes, he added, "They couldn't do any worse than our other teenagers."

Terra left, feeling a little remorse at abandoning Beast Boy, but not enough to keep her there. She took the stairs slowly, lacing her fingers behind her head and reveling in a job well done. With the Joker in League hands, she felt she could finally relax. Now her only job was to find where Robin could be. 'As if he could be anywhere else,' she thought with a wry smile.

* * *

A quiet, steady tone pulsed inside the Medical Bay, accompanying the shallow rise and fall of Starfire's bandaged chest. The tattered remains of her uniform lay forgotten on the floor. All that protected her modesty now was the three thousand yards of gauze the Titans had mummified her with, soaked in topical painkillers and medicated gel. A pair of butterfly patches adorned her cheeks.

Some presence pierced the veil of medication coursing through her veins. Her beautiful eyes fluttered open, searching their limited field for the source, and came upon Robin. He sat at her side, watching her breath in silence. For all she could discern, he had been there for hours, exactly as he was then.

"Robin." The happy word blended with her own drowsiness as it left her mouth. For all she knew, he could have been a dream, but neither of them cared. Real or otherwise, both cherished the sight of each other, safe and sound at last. But a frown quirked upon her bruised features as she asked in a small voice, "Are we victorious?"

He placed a reassuring hand atop hers, careful to avoid the damaged tissue. "We are," he promised her. "And you're supposed to be asleep."

"We Tamaranians are remarkably resilient." She told the three spinning Teen Wonders above her. Her eyes began to droop as she added, "Quite capable of taking care of ourselves. But your concern is," she yawned, "Appreciated."

Robin smiled. "Try and sleep anyway."

She seemed agreeable to the suggestion until he began to pull away. Somehow, she mustered the strength to ensnare his gloved hand and squeeze it with all her might, almost enough raw pressure to crush a durable butterfly. "You will be here when I awaken?"

He paused and returned the squeeze, leaning in close. His gentle hand ran across her face, closing her eyes as he caressed her unmarred skin. The other hand touched at his ribs, feeling the hard lump pulsating beneath his fingertips. 'I will tell them,' he pledged to himself, 'But now isn't the time.' "Anything for you, Kory," he murmured.

Satisfied, she slipped into a deep slumber, letting her hand drop from his back onto the biobed. Robin tiptoed out of the medical bay, loathe to leave, but knowing that he would have to at some point. The Justice League, a particular one especially, would want some answers. Better to seek them out before Batman hunted him down.

The doors whooshed open, revealing a tongue-tied Terra jiggling with impatience across the hall. She brightened as he walked out, pushing off from the wall to intercept him. "Robin, they-"

"Let me guess." There were only a few things that could make anyone as anxious as Terra was in such a short time. One of them had taught Robin everything he knew. "Batman."

She nodded. "He's waiting."

"Thanks."

Robin stalked off in a swirl of black cape. His exhaustion shone through in his hobbling steps and his limp hair, and the tired bags that hung beneath his mask. Terra knew she would never have the courage to act later, and so she leapt after him with a hurried, "Wait!" Nervousness began gobbling up her words as he turned around and looked at her expectantly. It was now or never. "I…I, uh…You were right." Robin tilted his head, confused, and so she was forced to explain: "You knew where the Joker would be while the rest of us were running around like idiots. You were the one who beat him. And I…"

"You were right, too." Terra's jaw dropped as Robin gave her a tired smile. "Believe it or not, Terra, I was just as clueless as everyone on this case. The truth is, I got lucky." He gave the Med Bay doors a longing glance. "We all did, I suppose." Turning back, he added, "But you really helped me to understand something better. Our talk about masks."

"You mean, about all that 'other you' stuff?" A bright spot shone from the murky conclusion of their battles with the Joker, a spot Terra clung to with all her might. "You can't keep all this stuff bottled up. It'll tear you up inside!"

"No." Robin shook his head. "This whole ordeal has reminded me why I gave up my other self. I let him get the better of me earlier tonight, and it almost cost Starfire her life. I need my secrets. They're the only things that make me who I am." A grim smile cracked his bitter mug as he turned away, and ran a hand over his ribs. "For now and forever, I'm Robin. I can't afford to be anyone else. The price is too high."

Terra leaned against the wall as she watched him go. She, too, glanced at the Medical Bay doors, thinking of her fallen teammate inside. The saddest part was, Starfire had just been dealt a truly crushing blow, and she might never realize it. "That price goes both ways, Robin," Terra said.

But there was no one to listen.

* * *

**END: ROBIN**

**NEXT: SANCTUARY**

Author's Afterward

CYBERWRAITH NINE'S ROBIN RANKS

_or, the worst to best list of Batman's bird-themed sidekicks_

JASON TODD

Now, we have to give old Jason a little credit; he's the classic poor-orphan-made-good story that warms the heart even as it drags the other characters down kicking and screaming. In a reader poll to determine this Boy Wonder's fate, the majority of the DC fans out there decided they'd rather see this poor Robin kick the bucket.

CARRIE KELLY

True, she's not a part of the DCU continuity. But this Miller creation, the daughter of useless liberal drug addicts, donned a homemade Robin outfit by choice and wound up saving Batman before he even knew she existed. From there, she had a colorful and decorated career kicking mutant ass with a slingshot and giving Superman hell with a tank-like Batmobile. She might have placed higher, but she gave up the uniform to become Catgirl. 'Nuff said.

DICK GRAYSON

Now we get down to the real contenders. This is the part where everyone is going to disagree with me, but that's okay. That's what the internet is for; geeks disagreeing with geeks. And as a geek, I'm now entitled to say my piece.

Let's get the positives out of the way. Dick founded the identity. He is the original, the trailblazer, the guy who started it all. For years he kept Batman in check, until the pressure and the constant neglect drove a wedge between the two of them. Up until this point, there could be no contest, save for this important point: In order to up his credibility and move away from his past, Dick gave up this identity in favor of a cooler name and a cooler uniform. While there's no shame in this, you'll all understand my point of view a little better in the next section.

TIM DRAKE

Here he is, my favorite. Rather than describe his illustrious career (since any net rat worth his salt can find all kinds of sites to give backstory), I'll go into why he is the superior Robin when juxtaposed with Dick. Simply put; Tim figured out Batman's identity via his own natural inquisitiveness and eye for detail. He then approached Batman and presumed to tell (not _ask_, but _tell_) Batman that he needed a Robin. When that didn't work, he _took_ the Robin suit and saved Batman's bacon.

Dick and Tim are both very similar. They're both scary excellent at what they do. But when it all boils down, I look at it like this: Dick took the name of a songbird and made it into a sidekick. Tim took the name of the sidekick, and is turning it into a hero.


	7. Sanctury: Reinforcements

_All-Purpose Disclaimer_

**Teen Titans** is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Cartoon Network Inc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit and purely for entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, not to be reproduced without prior consent. Additional information used in creating **Teen Titans: Avatar** courtesy of Titans Tower Online.

* * *

In the muted light of a filthy alley, a strapping teen shouldered his broadsword and wiped the sweat from his brow. His mousy brown hair clung to his forehead, and the denim tatters hanging from his broad shoulders were soaked through and slowly turning red. Down at his feet, a growing pile of broken mechanical components settled into pooling hydraulic fluid. He squinted down the darkened alley and smeared the blood away from the corner of his mouth, forcing his ragged breath into something more calm and orderly.

Next to him, Stripwire grimaced as he held his split side together with one hand. A spent sidearm dropped from the other as he watched the last of their mechanical foes fall from his leader's last blow. He touched a metallic disk in his ear, scowling intently behind a pair of dark goggles as the two of them caught their breath. "Jason, we're getting slaughtered out here. One of the big ones broke through the line on Third. Magnum's down, and Juice isn't sure if he's dead or just unconscious."

"I know," was all Jason said.

"Jason, we're dying." Though two years Jason's junior, Stripwire displayed a calm far greater than Jason's. "We need to-"

Jason whirled upon him, twisting his features with rage. "I KNOW!" Anger spent, his voice dropped alongside his shoulders. "I know, Strip." He heaved a breath and returned his death-grip to the hilt of the sword. The stylized 'S' on his chest glittered under the streetlight. "Sound the retreat. Get everyone back to Sanctuary. There's only one, so I'll handle it. If you don't hear from me in an hour, I'm probably dead."

"And the contingency plan for that will be…?" To hear Stripwire speak, one might believe he was talking about a rained-out ballgame, not life-and-death.

His leader considered this a moment. "Queenie's in charge if that happens. She'll know what to do."

Even Stripwire's implacable calm broke. His eyebrows shot up from the goggles, and his mouth twisted down. "If I might point out," he deadpanned, "That is a poor strategy."

The pavement beneath them began to vibrate in slow, ominous pulses. Dumpsters and windows began rattling, first softly, but with growing volume. Between the roaring beats, Jason's sharp ears picked up the telltale whirr of machinery. The sound pierced his memory and froze his blood, bringing with it a collage of haunting images. "It's the best I've got at the moment," he growled. The tip of his blade swung to rest in front of his face, trembling with anticipation and dripping with oil and fluid. "Get going, Strip. Hurry."

There was a 'but' forming on Stripwire's lips, but he took one look at Jason's determined face and knew it would be wasted breath. "Do not die, Jason." There was a beat before he added, "Queenie is not fond of responsibility."

"Reason enough, I guess." The joke helped calm him some, but it was not enough to lift the deadly intent from his eyes as Stripwire retreated. By the time the boy's footsteps faded, the pounding and whirring had grown to a constant, ear-splitting howl. A shadowy silhouette emerged at the far end of the alley, rounding the corner with slow, inexorable steps on thick legs bent backward. The creature's massive torso pivoted and raised gorilla-like arms as it zeroed in on Jason. As it began ostrich walking toward the teen, it passed beneath the alley's streetlight. Its metallic surface was pitted and scorched with his teammate's efforts. A glossy black screen glowered at Jason from between its massive shoulders.

A thunderous battle cry rattled from Jason's hoarse lungs as he charged. Green fire leapt from the mechanical creature's arms, bracketing Jason's assault. The dumpster to his left melted, then exploded, beneath the erratic onslaught, raining garbage down upon the two combatants.

As Jason's sword tore into the mechanical creature, it dawned on him for the third time in as many weeks that these could be his final moments. The thought of death hadn't frightened him since his mother's last breath had rattled his name. But it wasn't just his death on the line; All of Sanctuary was counting on him. He needed answers. He needed help.

His sword ripped through the robot's torso as the creature slashed his chest. Queenie's voice echoed in his head, speaking aloud two simple words that drove him to an enraged nausea. Two words he could no longer ignore. They were his last hope.

_Teen Titans._

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Sanctuary**: _Reinforcements_

"Ah!" Robin squalled as a disk of icy metal pressed against his bare flesh. "Why is it always cold?"

Looking around her stethoscope, Doctor Katherine Brown gave her patient a withering glance and pressed harder into his ribs, savoring the hiss that escaped his clenched teeth. "It's a tradition of cruelty that stretches back all the way to Hippocrates. Doctors for thousands of generations have been secretly spreading misery to sate their forbidden lust for human suffering. Now, are you going to hold still, or do I need to sedate you?"

"Aren't you supposed to be nurturing?" Robin groused.

Brown countered, "Aren't you supposed to be a superhero?"

"Point. I'll take that sedative now."

"Don't be too hasty." She removed the stethoscope and pulled away, moving to her desk in search of a new instrument. "It's a suppository."

A snicker arose from Cyborg, the room's only other occupant. Robin rolled his eyes, and for the fifteenth time that day he recounted the events that led him to such a humiliating situation. When he informed the Titans of his close encounter, the general consensus (following the uproar and disbelief) arose that he needed to go see an expert. There weren't many specialists on extra-terrestrial biology that were also on friendly terms with super groups. As a matter of fact, S.T.A.R. Labs was the only game in town. And when Brown, the head of S.T.A.R.'s Jump City facility, heard of a chance for a firsthand exobiological data collection, Robin thought she was going to reach through the phone line and pull him straight through to her lab on the spot.

That's why Robin currently occupied Brown's personal office, sitting on a padded table covered with butcher's paper and naked from the waist up. His patience was gone and his muscles were jittery from four hours of deep-tissue scans, humiliating tests, and more pictures of sensitive spots taken than he'd care to think about. He no longer cared about the alien wreck they were already calling "Fallen Songbird" in his honor, or the lump of ET nestled in his chest. He only wanted to go home and check on his recovering friend. "Are we done here?"

"Almost," Brown assured him. She drew a small syringe from a cabinet and examined it briefly, giving it an experimental flick. "I'd just like a physical sample of your blood to compare to the scans I took."

"I want to see the invasive camera again," Cyborg piped in. He leaned against a sensitive piece of billion-dollar equipment and examined a long, flexible fiber-optic lens, which had thankfully been sterilized since Robin's uncomfortable and degrading ordeal. "That was fun."

Doctor Brown braved the space between Cyborg's grin and Robin's fearsome glare. A tiny smirk arose as she produced a small medicated swab and began cleaning the crook of Robin's elbow. "I think the red stuff'll do, thank you."

Robin breathed a sigh of relief that was cut short by a nine-note number emanating from his utility belt. He plucked the yellow communicator from his waist, shifting and inadvertently bumping Brown's needle away. "Go."

"A new case came in," Raven deadpanned over the comlink. "Another rash of tech thefts." She noted Robin's nakedness, and added, "Nice pecs."

Cyborg tossed the camera aside, all business now. "Joker's locked up, and we returned whatever didn't explode."

"Not him. And not just LexCorp," Raven countered. "We need Robin to start analyzing the data the police sent us."

"We'll head out now, Raven. See you in a few." He replaced the comlink on his belt and gathered up his armored tunic. There was time enough for an inquisitive glance in the doctor's direction before his face vanished behind the heavy red folds of cloth. "What's the final word?"

Doctor Brown rubbed her chin as she considered her words carefully. "All my scans show is that it's attached itself to your nervous system via a series of tiny filaments. There's a slight increase in your metabolism, suggesting that the creature feeds off the nutrients in your bloodstream."

"It's alive?" Cyborg grimaced, repulsed. "What kind of creature is it?"

"Tough to say," said Brown. Holding up a hand, she said, "It's about the size of my fist, and it's covered with an exoskeleton that, thus far, has proven impervious to all of my scans. I've requested some equipment from our Metropolis branch, but it won't get here for a few weeks. We should get some answers then."

"And the craft?" asked Robin.

Brown shook her head. "Nothing we recognize. Our exolinguists are analyzing what we think are the craft's logs. As near as we can tell, it's some kind of escape pod. There wasn't much left of its pilot, but we're looking at that as well."

Robin nodded. "So what do I do in the meantime?"

She shrugged. "Eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired. So far, it's looking like you'll go down in history as the first human to contract a space tick."

It was tough to ignore the deep-throated chuckle rumbling from Cyborg. Robin reattached his cape to his shoulders, hooking it into the hidden clasps at his neckline. "Great," he muttered. "Let's go, Cy, before I break any more records."

The techno-teen moved to follow as Robin stalked toward the door. He snuck a smile at the doctor as he walked past and called after the Teen Wonder, "Don't worry, I'll drive real slow. And we can pull through a drive-thru if you want. After all, you're eating for two now."

Brown smiled as the two teenagers made their way out of her office. "I suppose the blood sample can wait until…" Her thoughts trailed off unfinished as she glanced at the syringe in her hand. The stainless steel needle was broken halfway to its base, and she was certain it had been intact when she first unwrapped it. "What the…"

* * *

Despite their earlier joviality, Robin and Cyborg were unusually quiet on the ride back to Titans Tower. With no disaster to race off to, Cyborg was forced to drive the speed limit, which made the trip to the Titan Transport Tunnel juncture that would take them underground that much longer.

Cyborg linked his subconscious subroutines to the T-Car's autopilot system, allowing his computerized mind to steer the car while leaving his higher brain functions free to converse. "You okay?" he shot sideways.

"Fine," Robin grunted.

There was more silence as the city blocks rolled by. Cyborg risked a glance over at his friend with his organic eye. Were Robin to slouch down any more, he might disappear inside the luxurious leather interior and not return until Cyborg's meticulous weekly detailing. There was a nigh-visible cloud of gloom hovering about his head. Even his black, spiky hair drooped with the weight of his misery. "Seriously," Cyborg said, "You're never this quiet unless something's wrong. Or if you're skulking. Or researching. Or just…Okay, so you're always quiet. But this is a different kind of quiet. What's wrong?"

Robin turned with a look of incredulity on his masked features. "Vic, I have an alien chest-burster nestled in my ribs. My mentor is furious because I took on his arch nemesis without so much as notifying him. My best friend is lying in bed, sleeping off a brutal attack I could have prevented if I had gotten my act together." Folding his arms, he slumped even further. Cyborg noted with a splinter of humor that he did not, in fact, slip into the seat. "How much more _wrong_ do you need?"

"Okay. Sorry," Cyborg muttered. Another pause, and then, "You aren't going to get all moody again, are you?"

A sharp hiss of air exploded between Robin's teeth as he sat up. "Fine. I'm done."

"Good." As an afterthought, he added, "Because it was starting to feel like Raven in stereo around the Tower."

There was a beat before Robin began to chuckle, slowly at first, but then with greater force. Cyborg found himself infected by the muted mirth, and the pair shared in a round of laughter that melted the tension and stress away. The moment didn't last long, but thankfully, it didn't have to.

Robin's chortles trailed off in a satisfied sigh. "I guess you're right," he admitted. "Starfire's been up and about for the last three days, Batman's always angry about something…" His knuckles rapped smartly against his rib cage, and he added, "And bug boy here seems fairly harmless."

As long as his leader was in a good mood, Cyborg decided to push his luck. "Hey, Robin."

"What is it?"

"Why'd you want me to come with?" The decision for Robin to see the doctors at S.T.A.R. Labs was unanimous. What wasn't quite so unilateral was just who would be coming along. Naturally, everyone wanted to be there for Robin (though Raven maintained that hers was a morbid curiosity and not concern). Starfire nearly blew a hole in the wall when the Teen Wonder refused her attendance based on her health. He solved the matter by limiting his escort to one, and had then selected Cyborg to be that escort.

Robin became somber at the question. "When all is said and done, Vic, we don't know what this thing will do to me. I could already be dying of some alien disease, or mind controlled without even knowing it."

"C'mon, man…"

"That's why," Robin insisted stubbornly, "You have to be ready to take control of the Titans. In case anything happens to me."

"Dude." Cyborg was simultaneously touched and mortified at the awesome, slightly disturbing honor Robin was bestowing upon him. He shook his head and gripped the wheel tighter. "Not gonna happen, Fearless Leader. Won't be an issue."

Robin said nothing to this. He called up the dashboard keypad and stared intently at the monitor. There was no doubt that the conversation was ended there. "Coming up on Juncture Twelve. Street's clear."

Cyborg's mental relays sent the silent command to the empty street ahead of them. The road lifted in the middle of the intersection as all four streetlights turned red, in case civilian traffic came toddling through. Flashing yellow lights revealed themselves atop the newly formed wedge of road raised to reveal a ramp leading underground.

Slowing the vehicle, Cyborg was about to guide them down into the ramp's inky depths when a person bolted from the sidewalk and halted right in front of the juncture. There was barely enough distance left for Cyborg to slam on the brakes in time. The T-Car's bumper rumbled to a halt mere centimeters short of slamming into the pedestrian's kneecaps.

"Yo!" Cyborg's door flew open as he lumbered out of the car, quickly followed by Robin on the other side. He rounded the hood of the car with thunderous steps, taking his look at the near-victim. "There's better ways of getting an autograph."

"I don't want an autograph," the stranger said sharply, never letting his eyes drift from the T-Car's hood or his feet from their blockade formation. "I want your attention."

* * *

Silently she crept through the dull passages of Titans Tower and toward her mission objective. Stealthily like a cat, and quiet like a mouse, she moved with no more evidence than a puff of air. She moved as a shade would; drawing no notice, leaving no trace. It was vital that she not be caught, lest the other Titans discover her and force upon her punishments of unspeakable magnitude. Capture was not an option. Failure was not an option. The fate of-

"Kory, what are you doing out of bed?"

"Eep!" The cry squeaked from Starfire's mouth, even as a string of Tamaranian curses sang in her head. Guiltily, the alien pivoted in midair to face her warden, a blue-eyed blonde who, as of late, had been applying a disapproving scowl to her features with such frequency as Starfire might apply lip gloss to her own. "Uh…heh. Tara, I did not hear you approach."

Terra's expression became a mix of irritation and subtle amusement. "Kinda like I didn't hear you leave," she countered, pointing out Starfire's floating feet. Stealth came easily to one who didn't need to walk.

Starfire chuckled nervously as the soles of her shoes settled onto the tile. "Ah, yes. I merely wanted to-"

"-check to see if Robin's back," Terra finished for her. "He isn't, so get back into bed." She made shooing motions with her hands as she tried to herd Starfire back down the hall.

Something snapped inside Starfire's usually sociable nature. She stomped her heel on the ground as storm clouds appeared in her stunning emerald eyes. "I do not wish to return to my room!" she whined. "I have already recovered my mobility, and these bandages have erased nearly all evidence of my injuries." She gestured to the remaining bandages plastered to her skin, poking out between her violet uniform. At that point, they were there simply to contain the topical jelly generously provided by S.T.A.R. Medical to act in tandem with her impressive natural recuperative facilities. Combined with daily sessions with Raven, she had been assured that no scars would remain. "Why must I remain here?"

"Hmm, let's think." Terra brought a finger to her chin in mock-thought. "Because Doctor Brown told you to get plenty of rest for at least the next week. Because Raven told you that moving around too much would ruin her voodoo. Or because I said so. Pick any of those."

Before Starfire could reply, the Tower's PA system crackled to life. "Everyone," Robin's voice sputtered through invisible speakers, "Report to Ops. We've got some things to discuss."

"Robin has returned from the Lab of Stars!" Starfire nearly exploded with joy and relief. But then her face fell into a confused slump. "Yet he seemed abnormally somber, which would suggest a diagnosis of unfavorable results." That confusion blossomed into panic. "Robin is going to mutate into a horrible creature with tentacles and claws and drooling fangs and-"

"Kory!" Terra hurried to calm Starfire before the Tamaranian exploded with worry. She grasped Starfire's shoulders gently so as not to aggravate her injuries, and said, "Robin sounds fine. It probably has something to do with that case the JCPD forwarded us."

Hearing this helped Starfire calm down, but it didn't totally dispel her despair. "I must journey to the Ops to ascertain this for myself."

"No," Terra said, holding fast to Starfire's shoulder. "You need to journey back to your bed. I'll-"

A cold green fire blazed in Starfire's eyes, replacing her gentle gaze with glowing points of boiling danger. "I am going to see Robin," she said. "Should you wish to stop me, that is your own, and very poorly made, choice."

Terra swallowed a large lump in her throat and backed away. "So like I was saying," muttered she, "Why don't I walk you up there?"

"Thank you," Starfire gushed, "That would be wonderful!" The light of her eyes faded to a dull glimmer as a smile split her stern mouth beneath.

Starfire ignored the soft sigh of relief smothered on Terra's lips as the two young women walked to the stairwell and began ascending the two levels between them and Ops. She didn't care that she had frightened their rookie, or that every move she made lit her skin on fire. All she wanted to do was to see Robin, and to find out what the doctors had told him.

She had seen the way Robin moved throughout the week as he tended to her at her bedside, wrapped up the lasting details of the Joker case, and coordinated S.T.A.R. Labs' efforts with the ill-timed crash. Every move he made was weighted down with a secret guilt he hid behind that weak smile he conjured up for her. Even without looking into his eyes (something Starfire wept inwardly over her inability to do), she could tell. What was worse, the way his shoulders dropped just before her door finished closing behind him, when he didn't think she could see him, told her the effort was all for her. His guilt was her fault, and that tore into her worse than any cut ever could.

'Why does Robin blame himself?' Starfire wondered silently. 'I was the one who failed him. If Joker had not overpowered me…If I had not been so weak…'

The doors opened, chasing away the wisps of stray thought in Starfire's mind. Instead, her heart shone with joy at the sight before her. "Robin!" She shot forward through the air, pushing away the pain and the guilt and the anguish that had hung over her far too long, and tackled Robin in a hug.

Robin stumbled back a few steps and caught the projectile girl. "Starfire! Take it easy, okay? I'm glad to see you too."

She looked down into his white, soulless eyes held wide with concern. She stared into them, and the empty voids stared right back, dampening her delight. "I…uh, of course," she muttered, releasing him and pulling away, embarrassed and disappointed.

A throat cleared behind them. Turning, Starfire was caught off guard by a strange sight: Someone she didn't recognize was in the Tower. He stood slightly taller than her, and almost as broad at the shoulders as Cyborg. A crop of unruly brown hair clung to his scalp, matted and poorly maintained, and wrangled together with a dirty black rag into a ponytail. He wore a muddy blue denim jacket, with shredded jeans and a black T-Shirt stretched over his muscular form. A crude, graffiti 'S' was painted on the shirt, peeking out between the lapels of the jacket. Strangest of all was the hilt and pommel stone hovering over his shoulder, held aloft by a thin leather strap traversing his broad chest.

"A visitor?" Starfire asked, staring curiously.

The rest of the Titans gathered around. Cyborg seemed distasteful of the stranger's presence, but he simply stood by with folded arms and said nothing. Raven, too, wore a look of distaste, but that was true for any new person she met. Beast Boy and Terra exchanged first questioning glances, then helpless shrugs; neither of them knew what was going on. With no one else to turn to, Starfire looked at Robin, who merely nodded in the stranger's direction.

The stranger didn't even flinch as all six Titans focused intently upon him. He squared his shoulders and spoke evenly, giving each of them a hard look. "My name is Jason Hawke," he told them, "And I need your help."

**To Be Continued**


	8. Sanctuary: Reflections

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Sanctuary**: _Reflections_

To say that Walter was an agreeable sort was a bit of a fib. Actually, it was an out-and-out lie; Walter had never been agreeable. Or personable. Or even likeable, really. His own parents had agreed to send him to Oxford simply so that they wouldn't see him outside of the occasional holiday. Last picked for T-ball, laughed at in the lunchroom, left behind at dances…none of that mattered to Walter, then or now. His brilliance had been evident, especially to himself, for as long as he could remember. All that mattered was his brilliance, and its application, through his work. Malevolence, madness, villainy and heroics…he was above all that.

But his name.

Techmann.

Of course, he hadn't been born a Techmann. Such a name was reserved for an infantile cartoon character, or those with astonishingly thick parents. And though he considered his parents' intellects to be sorely lacking, they deserved slightly more credit than that, if for no other reason than that their united genetics produced such a fantastic mind. No, the name sprang from his fellow, lesser students in college. When they learned of his engineering prowess, they sought at first to reach out to him, little realizing how worthless their base emotions were to him. When that failed, they lashed out at him, possibly out of some primitive concept of revenge. He received the label, 'The Tech Man': No time for people, only his machines. Over the course of his education, the moniker shortened and transmogrified into its modern-day form.

After graduation, Walter discovered a veritable sea of opportunities awaiting him. Engineering schools, design firms, and even such conglomerates as LexCorp and Wayne Enterprises vied for him with well-paying positions, each more boring than the last. Freelance work offered so much more creativity, admittedly with a more limited clientele. And advertising through his 'colorful' target market was limited to word of mouth. He needed a way to sum up his services in a simple, elegant way. Hence, to the roguish community, he became Walter Techmann.

To say that Walter was satisfied with his current facilities would be another lie. The dreary, drippy, dank and depressing dungeon he was stuck in was a far cry from his usual accommodations. Concrete walls forged his small space, interrupted every now and again by rusty iron piping that vanished and resurfaced from the cracked stone. His ceiling was littered with these same pipes, many of which dripped into makeshift pails and fed the native, thriving mildew colonies. The room's only exit consisted of an enormous pipeline, five feet wide, carrying over into the underground pipe ways of Jump City, and letting in a most potent stench. However, the cash flow was adequate, parts came plentifully, and inspiration, as always, followed him no matter where he went.

So, when the call from his employer came through, Techmann bit down on all the small complaints wading through his unparalleled brilliance, not so much to be polite, but in hopes that the conversation would be kept short. A shrill tone echoed through the workspace before the tiny screen mounted on the wall blinked on.

_"Techmann."_ His employer's voice was gruff and terse. _"Your report is late."_

Techmann pulled his head out of a partially competed robot chassis. The wisps of white hair still clinging to his oversized cranium drooped with hydraulic fluids. He adjusted his spectacles and focused in on the screen, returning the cyclopean glare with one of his own. "I told you, the project is progressing. Now leave me to my work."

Gruff became growl as the eye narrowed. "I expect more of those in my employ, Doctor Techmann."

He stood and dusted himself clean. Dark fluids still soaked his lab coat, adding to the existing collage of stains and dripping down onto the black floor. The frown on his face remained constant, and the tone of his voice never wavered. For the past twenty years, Techmann's voice and face had resembled those of a man perpetually biting down into a foul-smelling lemon. "You will not rush me," he stated.

The eye widened. "You dare to dictate terms to me?"

"I do." Unperturbed, Techmann explained, "You have hired me to deliver superior models to your current assault drones. Models with the ability to learn, strategize, and outwit. With these upgrades, your units will possess the skill and power to defeat even the Teen Titans. And because of this, because I am the only one capable of producing these results, I believe you will suffer a few minor deviations in your unrealistic timetable."

His employer paused a moment, considering the words. "Very good, Doctor Techmann," he said. "I enjoy seeing a man of conviction." The eye narrowed once more as he added, "But fail me, and you shall find that conviction will not be enough to stay my hand."

"I'm having difficulties with the units' new CPUs," Techmann explained. He was no stranger to threats, and was hardly intimidated by his employer's bluster. Rather, he simply enjoyed voicing his ideas aloud. The fact that this undereducated, unappreciative supervillain was the concern's recipient was secondary. "I keep losing the units. Complications during installation, or a rejection of the fiber-optic linkage."

"I recommend you hasten your efforts, Doctor. My sources inform me that the Titans may come knocking on your door very soon." Always one for dramatics, his employer cut the video feed after delivering the cryptic warning.

Techmann mulled over his employer's words carefully. He had problems enough dealing with the rag-tag metahumans as it was. The addition of the Titans during the testing phase could prove disastrous to his work. That could not be allowed. Nothing was more important than his work.

He crossed the room in slow, shuffling steps to where his last functioning CPU rested. A row of completed battle droids stood motionless behind him, but without a core, they were worthless. He needed more. That meant there would have to be another collecting run, most likely the last. But it would give him a chance to test his latest modifications, if nothing else.

"Come, then," he murmured to the CPU. The unit squirmed fruitlessly against the metal bonds holding it to the wall. A muffled sob filtered through the gag in its mouth. Techmann took the programming helmet in hand, examining the long, sharp linkage needles on the interior of its bowl before placing it on the writhing unit's head.. "Let's prepare you for operational status, shall we?" He activated the helmet, and then stepped back to avoid the brief spray of crimson from under the helmet's lip. The stifled shriek of the CPU went unnoticed.

* * *

_"My name is Jason Hawke," he told them, "And I need your help."_

The deeper Jason led them into Jump City, the older the buildings became, and the less the Titans recognized. Cyborg left the T-Car behind at Jason's insistence, albeit reluctantly, and they proceeded from there on foot. The elder Titan wasn't thrilled with the neighborhood they had left his baby in. When he voiced this opinion, their guide took a small sliver of satisfaction in watching Cyborg's face fall as he explained that they had parked in the 'good' neighborhood.

_He shifted about, glancing between the Titans. Aside from Cyborg and Robin, who already knew most of the story, he watched their reactions carefully as they shifted between confusion and curiosity. "Me, and a few of others like me, run a shelter for runaways downtown. We call it 'Sanctuary'."_

Each step proved Jason's assessment more accurate as he took them into the alleys. Aging skyscrapers, once proud and fresh, formed a cracked chasm of flaking stone for them to follow. They marched in single file, with Robin keeping watch up by Jason in the front, and Raven guarding their rear. Other than the growing odor, there didn't seem to be any problems on hand, but none of them were taking chances.

_"In the past few weeks, Sanctuary's been attacked. These robot things, they come up out of the sewer and onto our turf. Every time they attack, a bunch of our kids go missing." The corners of his eyes moistened as he added, "We've already lost eight of them."_

Graffiti tags lined either side of the alley. Sometimes it was just a name, or a set of initials. Other times, someone had sprayed entire murals onto the bare walls. A few of them were decent, and others were too disgusting to describe. Starfire began asking about one of the worst of them with questions of human anatomy and feasibility. Robin told her as politely as possible to keep quiet.

_Something didn't sit right with Terra. "Why haven't we heard about this before?"_

_"Yeah," Beast Boy added, "Seems to me that if kids are being gobbled up by robots, we would have heard about it."_

A foraging hobo was the first soul they encountered. All they could see was his wriggling backside as he dug about the interior of a dumpster behind a McDonalds. The rest of the Titans gave him a wide berth, but Jason made it a point of greeting him by name. A tiny smirk lifted the corner of his mouth as Terra and Beast Boy shifted closer to one another.

_"These are runaways," Jason reminded them. "Jump City's a big place. What with all the super criminals," he added with a bitter tang on his tongue, "Nobody notices a few missing underage drifters."_

A pair of children waited patiently on the other side, watching the man dig. One of them recognized the line of superheroes following after one of their own, and tugged on his older sister's sleeve. Soft, excited murmurings crossed between the pair as they watched the Titans parade past. Starfire gave them a tiny wave and a large smile.

_"How have you held out this long?" Raven said._

The graffiti within the alley thinned out abruptly at a seemingly arbitrary point. As they continued on, the only thing Robin noticed on the wall was the occasional tag of an 'S', identical to the one Jason's shirt sported. He also caught sightings of struggle. Though subtle, almost invisible to the untrained eye, the oily stains and scrapings dug into the walls, and the faint tinge of gunpowder, all wove a story of the recent battles the alley had hosted.

_His fingers ran along the graffiti 'S' painted on his shirt. The gesture was an unconscious, nervous habit of his, and he hadn't stopped doing it since entering the Tower. "The older kids and I form a…protective group. The little kids nicknamed us the 'Streetbeat'._

A trio of young teens haunted the padlocked back door of a pawn shop. Each one wore a distinctive pattern of red, and hateful glowers aimed at the Titans' guide. There was no mistaking the way Jason's shoulders stiffened, or how his hand drifted crosswise up toward his shoulder and the hilt that waited there. At their approach, the Bloods rose to their feet, slowly, in unison.

_"You're a gang." The accusation tumbled from Robin's mouth amidst a geyser of disgust._

The Blood in the lead looked at Jason with dagger eyes. His cheek possessed an even split in the form of a long, pink scar that transmuted into a deep crimson. Each of them looked eager to start something with the lone Streetbeat, but the train of superheroes behind him stayed their hands.

_Jason's eyes became slits. "Don't ever call us that. We don't care about turf, or power, money, or any shit like that. All that matters is keeping the kids safe."_

"Piss off," Jason snapped as he passed them.

_"What do you want from us?" Robin cut to the chase._

Presently, their destination loomed before them. Despite Jason's descriptions, it resembled nothing in the Titans' imaginations. The spires stretching high above the tops of Sanctuary's neighbors were much older than any other building they had yet encountered this deep in the city. Like the rest of the Streetbeat's territory, its walls were bare of amateur art, and instead filled with cracks and breaches across its crumbling bricks. Most of the enormous windows set high above the streets were boarded up. Only a few of them still possessed remnants of the beautiful stained glass works once set in their sills. A large, blank section in the shape of a cross hung above the large and elaborate double doors.

_"Come back to Sanctuary with me. Help us track down where these things are coming from. Help us get our kids back."_

"This is it."

_"Please."_

Robin exchanged glances with Jason. "Let's go," he said with a nod.

Raven glanced up at the ancient building. Something relatively close to amusement twanged her withered heartstrings. "Sanctuary," she muttered. "A cathedral. I get it."

"I don't," Beast Boy announced loudly.

Jason began to open the door, then thought better of it. With a small smile, he stepped aside and gestured for the Titans to precede him. It seemed a little odd, but none of them sensed any malice in his smirk. With nothing to lose, Cyborg bit down on Jason's bait. He grasped the rusty rings on the doors and pulled back, easily besting the squeaky hinges with his cybernetic strength.

As the rotting wood swung to either side, Cyborg found himself staring down the glowing barrel of a massive technological marvel. Bound to the floor by a snaking power cable, the cannon (plasma in nature, if Cyborg was to believe his startled analysis) sat upon the shoulder of a young teen who showed no signs of strain beneath the twelve feet of gleaming metal. Instead, her youthful features twisted with rage and distrust as she shifted the cannon's barrel to rest just inches from Cyborg. Intense heat rolled off of his remaining skin, forcing his slate eye to squint and tear up.

"Don't move, Mister Roboto," she snarled, "I swear t' God I'll-"

"Queenie," Jason barked. He stepped past Cyborg, who was holding very still, and slipped in the doorway. Behind them, the other Titans rallied with flaring powers and flashing weapons to defend their friend. The joke had gone too far, and so Jason pushed Cyborg back and stood before the cannon. "Stand down," he said more calmly, "It's them."

For a moment, Queenie didn't know what to do. She looked, really looked, at the Titan over Jason's shoulder, and her eyes shot open in recognition. The cannon rolled off her shoulders and cracked against the wooden floor, shaking the ground and setting Jason off-balance. "Ohmygod!" she gasped. The stretched sleeves of her Gotham Knights sweatshirt, which was three sizes too big anyway, flew to her mouth. She rushed forward, babbling, "Geez, sorry, sorry, I saw the metal an', sorry, I just-"

"Friendly people here," Terra muttered from the back as the pavement around her settled back into place at her behest. The green gorilla next to her shrank back into its normal fourteen-year-old proportions and nodded in silent agreement.

Cyborg eyed the impressive piece of discarded tech, then her mocha face, which twisted with worry and chagrin. An easy smile reassured her troubles as he said, "Guess you're not the type that needs help with pickle jars, li'l lady."

With the awkwardness behind them, Queenie grinned freely at her former foe, and flexed for him. Juxtaposed with Cyborg, it was clear she towered over all of the Titans save for the teched-out teen next to her. Yet she didn't seem any older than Starfire or Raven. She posed playfully for Cyborg and sassed him, "Ain't nothin' li'l 'bout this lady, Metal Head."

Together, Jason and Queenie ushered the Teen Titans into Sanctuary. They tiptoed across rotting planks into the expansive cathedra. As with their entrance, the interior of Jason's base of operations held a number of surprises. The building was a gutted shade of its former self. The pews were gone, probably scrapped to form a row of triple-decker bunks lining the far wall. Instead, the space was a corral for dozens of children, ranging from as young as four to as old as any of the Titans. There were kids of every race, and they all wore tattered rags and tattered expressions. Some huddled inside of filthy scraps for blankets, while others milled about. Their faces held no joy, only a sense of dread and foreboding that poisoned the spirit of the room.

"Welcome to Sanctuary," Jason muttered. A bitter ball of disgust formed in his gut as he watched the outsiders appraising his home. Their reactions were carefully measured, but he knew what they were thinking, and it made him sick. He looked to Robin and said, "We should start as soon as possible."

The Teen Wonder nodded. Turning to his team, he said, "Take a look around and get a feel for the place. Defenses, assets, anything along those lines." The others split apart as Robin followed Jason into a secluded corner, cordoned off with a trio of tables. The area was littered with different maps of Jump City. One in particular, suspended on the cracked plaster wall, had a series of red tacks poked into it, forming a line leading right to their location.

Safely out of earshot, Robin uttered, "That little show you put on at the door wasn't necessary."

Jason circled around a table, facing off against his costumed opposite. "I wanted you to know that we aren't toothless." He unfurled a map and laid it out, smoothing down its edges. The chip on his shoulder was nigh visible by now.

"Queenie." Robin glanced back at the sentry, who had paired off with Starfire as they made their way into what looked like a makeshift kitchen set up where the alter once was. "You didn't tell us you had any metahumans on your team."

"I didn't think it mattered," Jason clipped back. His eyes were fixed on the map between them.

"What about that cannon?" Robin pressed the issue, not one to back down against stonewalling. Years with Batman had desensitized him to such an attitude. "It doesn't look like anything I've ever seen."

He nodded reluctantly. "One of our guys found it and fixed it up after those bird people left."

"Thanagarian tech." Now Robin's interest was absolute. "Maybe you'd better tell me what this 'Streetbeat' of yours brings to the table."

A pause followed Robin's request, and then a defeated sigh filled the space between them. Jason glared at Robin as he nodded over to the opposite side of the sprawling room, past the throng of children who were beginning to take notice of the Titans' arrival. There was a small conglomeration of appliances and auto parts, as well as several other devices Robin couldn't recognize. Just as Jason pointed the section out, Cyborg also took notice, and was on his way.

Clanking footfalls accompanied Cyborg over to the stack of scavenged machinery. He waved hello and traded smiles with those who recognized him as he waded through the sea of runaways. It was kind of refreshing to see so many kids gushing over him instead of whispering or running away. Idly, he wondered why these kids didn't think his prosthetics were so horrible.

Tattered jeans and worn boots protruded from underneath an old dryer, twisting occasionally with the figure's unseen machinations. Cyborg caught sight of a circuit board disappearing underneath the raised appliance. He smiled and spoke loudly so as not to startle whoever lay beneath. "A fellow tech lover, huh?"

_"Over there?" Jason nodded in the pile's direction once more. "That's Stripwire."_

"I possess a unique attachment to my work," came the reply. A hand appeared and grasped the edge, pulling the rest of the mechanic out. The dark golden skin beneath his torn tank top gleamed with fresh spots of grease, and his hair was suitably tussled. But what stole Cyborg's voice were the gleaming lenses where his eyes should have been. When Cyborg said nothing, he offered the massive mecha-man a hand. "Stripwire."

_"What's his story?"_

Cyborg reached for the hand, and then pulled back; Stripwire's entire arm was composed of metal framework with undulating, twisting components visible. Dozens of different tools made up his left hand. At the moment, his middle finger, which doubled as a multi-adaptive ratchet, extended beyond the rest. Presently, Stripwire became aware of Cyborg's hesitation and pulled back. His ratchet retracted back with a series of clicks.

_Jason's voice became deadened. "Strip's got some kind of degenerative disease. It's eating away at his body. But he's some kind of genius. I'm talking scary smart. When one body part craps out, he just builds another."_

"I apologize." Though he shied back somewhat, Stripwire didn't seem the least bit embarrassed. In fact, he didn't seem anything but cool and very collected. He produced a set of blackened safety goggles, which slipped easily over his eyes, then proceeded to draw a long latex glove over the tools and tech of his left arm. "On occasion, I forget that my appearance can create an unsettling initial reaction."

_"He's the one that fixed the cannon." Robin's first impression of the boy was one of pure admiration. Cyborg easily dwarfed the boy, who must have been around Beast Boy's age. Clearly, he did not possess Beast Boy's IQ, or his attention span._

"Wha-No!" An intense shame nearly overloaded Cyborg's circuits. He rubbed the back of his neck and hoped he could salvage what was left of his first impression. "No, dude, it's cool. I mean, if anyone could…I'm not…" The words refused to form properly. Finally, Cyborg managed the lame explanation, "I've just never met anyone like me before, that's all."

Starfire, in the meantime, had followed Queenie into Sanctuary's kitchen. It consisted of several electric ovens and a set of battered refrigerators, surrounded by card tables and folding chairs fished out of dumpsters or rescued from corners. A thousand aromas lingered there, individually tantalizing but collectively nauseating. There, a posterior wriggled outside an open fridge while its owner sang a little ditty.

"Gonna find a snack," the buttocks hummed, bouncing about. "Gonna eat it up. Gonna take this Chinese…"

Starfire's escort continued his tune, "Which isn't yours, it's Queenie's…"

"Ah," the buttocks countered, pulling out a bronzed boy with Chinese box and chopsticks in hand, "But you forget." He raised a fried mushroom between the utensils and shook them in her direction. "Queenie's such a fantastically forgiving soul, that she wouldn't care if I ate her smelly old leftovers."

Queenie shot a sidelong glance at their guest. "Starfire," she began with dripping irony, "This ass here is-"

_"-Magnum." Jason watched the exchange with a ghost of a smile. Considering their surroundings, Robin figured smiles were few and far between. "He's Strip's older brother. Kind of a jerk, but he's good. Can throw stuff just by touching it, like bullets or something._

"And what he's forgetting," continued Queenie, "Is that I'll pound him into the ground like a tent stake if he eats my food."

Magnum shook his unruly shock of hair and grinned. "But somehow, Queenie's always on hand to remind me." Without so much as a twitch, the food in his hand flew off and into Queenie's chest. She barely caught the box in time. Beneath her glare, Magnum snatched the mushroom between his teeth and gave Starfire an appraising leer. "Finally," he said, "Some well-mannered tail to chase after."

_"A tactile telekinetic." Robin's thoughts drifted to Superman's youthful clone, a longtime friend of his from his former days before the Titans. Starfire, in the meantime, blushed at something Magnum said to her while Queenie only grew angrier. "I'm familiar with them."_

Raven waded through the urchins, keeping them at bay with an outstretched hand. It didn't take much effort, since Beast Boy and Terra had already made themselves the center of attention. A crowd of children gathered around them as Terra took the dirt right off the floor and floated it into different shapes above their heads. Beast Boy did what he did best (tomfoolery), and began morphing into dozens of animals, as fast as the children could shout out their requests.

Because of the show, and the delight it gave the little ones, a single focal point of loneliness leapt out at Raven's empathic senses. It emanated from behind the bunks, drawing the sorceress in like a moth to a flame. There, against the wall, a hooded figure sat. His form hid beneath heavy swaths of rags. Only a pair of glowing cobalt points escaped the shadows of his cloak.

"Hey," she uttered. "I'm Raven."

The blue lights shifted upward at her approach. "I know," he replied amiably, "I'm a big fan. Name's-"

_"Juice. Electric powers." With a grimace, Jason added, "Try to avoid the 'That's shocking,' jokes. He hates those."_

_Never crossed my mind," Robin lied. After a careful scrutiny, he asked, "Why all the bundling up? It isn't that cold."_

Tentatively, Raven offered her hand to the stranger. Normally, physical contact wasn't even considered, but she sensed within him such a deep-seated isolation. It almost felt as though her spirit was reflected before her. It was powerful, almost head-spinning. But he did not reach up and take her hand, and his inner turmoil intensified.

Slowly, he pulled a hand free of its oversized sleeve. Pale skin clung to his bony hand, almost transparent. "Sorry," he uttered, "I can't really do the 'meet-'n'-greet' all that well." His fingers spread, and thin strings of blue power arced between their tips. The air tingled with the charge until he closed his hand and drew it back into the cloak of tatters.

Back at the table, Jason's shoulders sagged. It felt cheap to sum p his team with a few paltry introductions. "Last one's out on a job right now. He should be back soon."

All became clear to Robin. He surveyed the whole of Sanctuary and its protectors with a new sense of appreciation. Jason had been right to be angry; they were nothing like a gang. "They're all metahumans…except you."

"Shove it." Jason's eyes grew hard and cold. "Don't bother trying to make some kind of lame bond between us or something."

"I just wanted to say-"

"We are nothing alike," he snapped. "Just remember that next time you climb into your nice warm bed inside that safe, snooty 'T' of yours. Man, you don't have a clue about life down here."

Robin's guts twisted and his fists clenched as a flood of memories rode the coattails of Jason's tirade. An absent father, a squalid hole of an apartment, daily trips out into the terrifying streets of Gotham just so he could eat…No matter how far he came, he would never forget. "You don't know anything about me," he choked through silent rage.

"Whatever." The map between them became their focus once more. Jason's finger traced a path opposite the one they had taken to Sanctuary. From there, he indicated several different routes, all stemming from the same source. "These robot things always attack along this vector. Problem is, they keep cropping up in different spots."

Being angry wasn't going to get them anywhere, so Robin did what came naturally, which was to throw himself into his work and suppress every emotion aside from cold, focused intensity. "How'd you spot them?"

"The first time, they were practically on our doorstep. After that, I started some rotating patrols." Jason tapped the map, pointing out the patrol routes. "Every time a group of them cropped up, a runner would relay it to us, and we'd go stomp them."

"What exactly are 'they'?" Enough was enough. "I need details, not vague descriptions. What are these things?"

"I don't have a degree in a Villainology, okay?" Jason stormed back. His fist slammed down, collapsing the flimsy table. It clattered to their feet, sending its maps spilling out and underfoot as he spun away. "Damn it, that's why I called you people down here!" Lucky for him, Beast Boy and Terra created enough ruckus to cover up his indiscretion. Lowering his voice to a hiss, he spoke into the wall, "I tried to handle this. 'We' tried."

Robin had been prepared for a lot of things, but not this. The cold in his guts didn't disappear, but it did lessen. "Jason…"

"Just fix this," he muttered. "Do whatever it is you do, and fix this. Find…" and he choked, "Find my kids."

Whatever moment they were about to share died with a loud pop as the air pushed out and expanded between them. A bright flash blinded them both. By the time Robin could see again, there was a third person standing in Jason's planning area.

"Yo." The younger teen, dressed in a Jump City Panthers jersey offset by his electric blue skin and hair, spotted Jason first. His back turned to Robin, the blue boy shrugged his shoulders and said, "Finally got it out back. Bastard's heavy as shit, man. Took an hour t' get it back to th' shed." For whatever reason, he turned around in the midst of his complaining. "Goddamn pile of-yow!" He found himself nose to nose with the Teen Wonder, and flashed out of existence, reappearing several feet back with the same bright burst and snap of expanding air.

Robin tensed an instant at the new arrival's fantastic entrance, shifting his features into a scowl worthy of his mentor. "A teleporter?"

"Good guess, Birdie." The teleporter regained his composure quickly, running a hand through his stiff straw hair and feigning nonchalance. "Name's Blink." The wide, blank eyes set into Robin's mask remained mere slits. "I, ah, guess this means Jace got th' Titans down here." And still, Robin's eyes threatened to burn a hole through his face. "It was th' 'Birdie' dig, wasn't it?"

"Gets old," Robin grunted.

"Sorry."

"Apology accepted." Robin relaxed and offered his glove, which Blink gratefully took, relieved that the tension had passed. With that out of the way, Robin turned back to the Streetbeat's leader. "Now, what can you-"

The ground began to tremble. At first, it merely tickled their toes. Soon it grew to rattle the secondhand furniture, as well as the people occupying it. Squeals of delight dissolved into screams of terror as the ceiling began raining chips of plaster.

"Terra," Robin barked, and then added, "Beast Boy," because the shapeshifter was doubtlessly causing trouble of his own, "Stop it right now!"

The earthen girl could barely keep her footing. "It isn't me, I swear!" Terra felt the topsoil beneath Sanctuary's foundation scream in protest as something tore it aside. "It's coming from underneath us!"

A deafening crack split the air and the floor, spraying splinters and shards of cement every which way. Children flew from the spot with terrified wails, creating such a clamor that none of their heroes could see what was happening. It was only when the last little one fled the growing gap in the floor that the sharp mechanical claws tearing at their floor became visible.

Titan and Streetbeat alike watched in horror as a long line of gleaming metallic skeletons began pulling themselves up into Sanctuary. Their numbers kept coming, filling the room with glowing red eyes of hate and vicious claws freshly whetted from their dig beneath the building.

"Oh God," Queenie gasped in horror, dropping her treasured box of Chinese food. "It's the little ones. They made it in."

Starfire gaped, feeling a chill rise through her body. "Those are the smallest of your enemies?" she asked in disbelief. The robots easily topped Starfire's crimson crown by several inches, and were at least twice as wide.

Robin heard the scrape of metal on leather as he stared at the growing legion of mechanoids. Turning, he saw Jason with sword in hand. The sword remained motionless in his thick arms, an impressive feat with such a large blade. "You wanted to see what's been dogging us," Jason snarled. "Take a good look."

**To Be Continued**


	9. Sanctuary: Rally

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Sanctuary**: _Rally_

Analysis. Strategy. Planning ahead. Planning on the fly. These were but a few of the thousands of skills drilled into Robin, and among his most valuable and most frequently exercised. In a world of young gods and metatalented foes, the only way to stay on top was to always be ten steps ahead of everyone else at any given moment, anywhere, no matter what.

But such a feat was beyond even the great Batman and his inexhaustible well of talent. _When you're caught off guard,_ the Dark Knight had lectured Robin, _With no plan and no choice but to fight, don't panic. Panic is the enemy. Analyze the situation, keep your assets in mind, and above all, never let on that you hadn't expected the impossible to slap you in the face. Ninety percent of maintaining control of a situation is acting as though you already have control of the situation before it started._

_And if I can fake that,_ a twelve year old Robin had exclaimed, _The rest is easy, right?_

The cold, sad look that had seeped into Batman's unmasked eyes would come to haunt Robin for days after the fact. Somehow, it was as though the venerable hero could see the future awaiting his new ward. _Robin,_ he said with a rare sliver of pain haunting his rumbling voice, _It will never be easy._

With those grim words in mind, Robin set himself to the task at hand. His body operated purely by memory born from endless repetition, drawing and extending his metal staff with one hand and palming a low-yield explosive disc with the other while his steel-soled boots pounded against the splintering floor. Ahead of him loomed a gaping maw in the old cathedral's floorboards, with a growing horde of skeletal robots slithering from beneath the surface. Meanwhile, his mind was already putting the lessons of the past to good use.

Problem: A formerly secret inner-city orphanage for runaways was now under direct attack from below by an unknown number of battle robots unlike any he had ever seen, presumably the same bots the Titans had been called in to stop.

Assets: The Titans, of course, as well as the teenaged metahumans in charge of the self-sustaining Sanctuary, the Streetbeat: Queenie, Juice, Blink, Stripwire, Magnum, and their leader, Jason. Like the Titans, all of them but their leader possessed powers beyond the scope of ordinary humans. But their abilities and talents remained relatively unknown to Robin, which made it difficult to include them in his strategy.

Complication: The very children the Streetbeat had sworn to protect now cowered in fear at the invaders. Their presence prevented any heavy artillery from evening the odds, and forced each of them to curb their actions lest they accidentally hurt one of the kids.

"Titans," he roared above the noise of the crumbling foundation and screaming children, "Form a perimeter! Top priority is protecting the children, next is plugging that hole!"

A denim clad figure blurred by in the corner of Robin's eye. The Streetbeat's leader raised his broadsword and led by example, crashing into the leading wave of mechanized skeletons. Jason's clumsy shoulder swing tore through steely ribcages, sending a shower of sparks and debris flying every which way. He planted his foot between the sputtering red sockets of a robot's skull and yanked his blade free. His eyes burned with lustful hate at the small army before him, missing the pair flanking him from behind.

The whistling air of a claw plunging at his head turned his attention in time to spy the blow that would end his life. He jerked back involuntarily, just as the claw froze in midair, stopped short by the sleeve of an oversized black sweatshirt. "Need some help?" grunted Queenie as she crushed the robot's wrist and tossed it aside effortlessly. Her flippant smile split into a startled shriek as Jason's sword streaked past her face and speared the second sneaky skeleton's skull.

"Head in the game, Queenie," he growled up at the sheepish girl. "And make sure those Titans don't—"

She nodded, grasping at another skeleton and heaving it into the oncoming wave. The crash of mechanical bodies slowed their assault long enough for her to shout back, "I know."

On the opposite side, Cyborg found himself in mixed company; he, Starfire and Raven, along with a couple of the Streetbeat, were all that stood between the robot horde and a crowd of children huddled next to the bunks. A quick check of the situation gave him the same conclusion Robin had drawn. "Star," he grunted as his sonic cannon mechamorphed back into his right arm, "Hold off on the 'bolts. We don't want civilian casualties."

Starfire's green glowing hands extinguished themselves as she floated into the air, curling her fingers into fists. Her eyes burned with brimming power that longed to be unleashed, but remained restrained. "Then we are to be 'getting physical' with the mechanized interlopers?"

Several of the advancing robots shimmered with liquid shadow. They began to quake, and with a squeal of wrenching metal, flew apart at the seams. Raven hovered above her fellow Titans and withdrew her soul self from the ruined robots, repressing a shudder. "Are we here to talk," she grumbled, "Or are we here to fight?"

Below the girls, Magnum grinned and elbowed his rag-robed friend. "The goth girl's pretty fly, Juice. You were right, that one-piece really is hot."

The blue eyes deep within the heavy folds of cloth burned bright as Juice threw Magnum's arm aside. "Shut up and fight," he said, rolling up his sleeves as the robots reached their position. His powder white hands touched against the metal chassis of one, sending a massive surge of blue energy arcing across the robot's body. It took only a second for the bioelectric charge to overload the robot's comparatively pitiful power core and blow it apart. Juice was blown off his feet and sent tumbling back, a victim of his own success.

Magnum caught hold of a smoking, dismembered claw, and stole a glance at the girls hovering above them. "Still," he mused with a leer, "There's something to be said for miniskirts." With a thrust of his tactile telekinesis, he sent the hand rocketing straight into the face of another bot. The fearsome war machine continued back, bowling into his fellow units and stemming the tide for a moment.

That miniskirt Magnum admired so much crashed down into the horde, carrying with it an enraged alien warrior and her Tamaranian battle cry. Every robot within her reach crumpled at her touch, their alloys no better than aluminum to her. Cyborg was right behind her, tearing the offending mechanoids limb from limb. And beyond him, Raven guarded the rear, wielding her soul self as enormous blades that twained those robots her teammates missed.

Juice's snowy hands brushed away the electrified flotsam clinging to his robes as he stood. It was his turn to do the elbowing as Magnum gaped at the Titans' onslaught. "Now that's how it's done," the living generator quipped.

Moments before the battle, Beast Boy had been delighting the children at Terra's side with a one-man zoo of the cutest, funniest animals in his arsenal. Now he was a rotating catalogue of nature's deadliest predators, an emerald swarm of destruction. He was a cougar, clawing apart the robots' exposed inner wiring; a bear, tossing them left and right; a gorilla, ripping their limbs off and beating them with their own talons.

He morphed again, shifting into a velociraptor, whose powerful jaws scissored a skeleton in half. Its power core sent a shock through his mouth and forced him back into his human form, befuddling his already-confusing mental pathways. Beast Boy clutched his aching head and spoke around a mouthful of cotton, shouting, "They just keep coming!"

Robin clutched his staff with an iron grip, beating back a trio of the skeleton bots as he waded his way through the foes towards Queenie and Jason. Beyond them, the breach in the floor kept spitting out robot after robot. The combined forces of the two teams were performing admirably, but for every skeleton they trashed, three more crawled from the depths to replace them. "Terra," he shouted above the din, "Close that hole."

"I can't!" Not far from Beast Boy, Terra fought for her life with a spear formed from compressed dirt she had lifted out of the floorboards. "This building is already unstable, and that tunnel's only made things worse. If I," and she grunted, cleaving the skull from a robot's neck, "If I start playing with the concrete in the foundation, the whole place could come down."

"Well, somebody do something quick," snarled Cyborg, lashing out with his foot and separating a robot's upper and lower halves. Its legs stumbled around drunkenly as its torso tumbled through the air. "We're—AUGH!"

Three separate sets of pencil-thin lasers drilled into his chest and forced him to his knees. Dizzy, he looked up through faltering optics as three of the skeletons raised their claws to finish him off. Their crimson sockets still smoldered with lingering smoke, burning hatefully at the prone Titan. Cyborg prepared to go offline, when one of the bots' heads exploded, raining shrapnel all over him. The second and third robots soon suffered the fate of the first; their bodies collapsed into useless heaps, revealing Cyborg's rescuer.

Stripwire lowered his odd cannon, which rapidly reassembled itself back into his robotic arm. "Compression cannon," he said. "High-density blast of air. Devastating in close combat, ineffectual at a distance, negating any risk to bystanders."

Taking the hand offered to him, Cyborg got back to his feet. "No complaints here," he grinned at the stone-faced Streetbeat. But there was no time for witty heroic back-and-forth as the rest of the robots pressed ahead, marching over the useless parts left from their first wave.

Starfire, Raven, Magnum and Juice were forced back, practically on top of the children they protected. One of the little ones, a brown-haired boy of no more than five, wrapped his arms around Magnum's leg and squeezed his eyes shut. The cocksure telekinetic could feel the child trembling against him, and set his face into a determined snarl as his power surged into another robot, blasting it back.

The girls' strength showed signs of strain as they tore into the phalanx crushing into them. Raven's eyes flared as she erected a translucent barrier of black around them all. The robots clawed at her shield and tried to climb its slick surface, but could not overcome its height. The shield held, but Raven's grinding teeth let the other heroes know that she couldn't hold it for long.

"We are in need of reinforcements." Starfire leaned against her knees and winced at her reddened knuckles, breathing heavily.

Magnum hissed, clutching at a gash in his side. "You super clowns _were_ our reinforcements!"

Lashing out with his compression cannon, Stripwire took calm stock of the situation. "Clearly," he stated as another robot blew apart in his face, "We need to stem the tide of robotic attackers."

"I told you," cried Terra, "I can't!"

A green lion roared and shrank back to human proportions, looking back at the crumbling hole through a wall of skeletal robotic might. "No," he shouted back, "But I can think of a few animals big enough to cork that bottleneck."

Tearing through the spine of a bot with a bent birdarang, Robin shouted, "Do it!"

Beast Boy's ropey frame blurred and shrank into that of an eagle, with the intent to tackle the problem from above. But a scrabbling robot claw snatched him from the air and slammed him back onto the floor. He became a falcon, a sparrow, even a hummingbird, but each form yielded the same results. A frustrated squid tossed the robots back before returning to human shape. "No good," he yowled, "I can't get high enough. If I could just become something bigger—"

"-you'd collapse the whole place and kill everyone," Raven finished for him. A thin trickle of black blood oozed from her nose as the robot skeletons pounded against her shield in unison. She fell to her knees, squeezing her glowing eyes shut in an effort to maintain their protection.

"Blink!" Jason bellowed, hacking away at the attacking mass without effect, "Where are you, you miserable coward?"

A voice from the rafters called, "Just strategizing from a better angle, Boss."

"Get the bean sprout above the hole," the Streetbeat leader ordered.

"But—"

"NOW!"

Beast Boy flinched as a dazzling burst of light blasted him from above. Before he knew what hit him, a spindly boy about his age and build fell from the sky and crashed into him. Possessing a unique complexion of his own, Beast Boy was unfazed by the newcomer's sapphire skin. It was the entrance from thin air that proved far more startling. "What the—"

"Get ready," Blink said, wrapping his arms around Beast Boy's chest, "This'll be a little confusing."

"What're you—" was all that passed the changeling's lips before he was pulled inside out from behind his belly button. Blinding lights filled his eyes as he reassembled an instant later forty feet higher, where his inner ear screamed in protest at gravity's terrifying grip. "Waugh!"

"Bums away!" Blink sang, releasing his payload and 'porting to safety.

A willowy shadow hovered above the still-entering skeleton bots. Several looked up as the shadow's edges ballooned outward, blanketing the breach in darkness. Those that paid the eclipse mind received a face full of pachyderm posterior. Beast Boy's tremendous elephant bulk crushed a baker's dozen of the emerging threats as he wedged into the opening with a terrific crash. The green elephant trumpeted triumphantly, feeling the terrible claws of their foes tickling his leathery hide from below.

"Hole's plugged," Jason called out, "Now what?" Even without their endless reinforcements, he still saw more robots than he knew what to do with. If the new situation made them desperate, they might decide to make a run at some of the children.

"If we group them together, we can finish them off quick," Robin shot back. The skeletons seemed more reluctant to throw themselves upon the heroes now, and attacked with more guarded swipes. Their movements betrayed a cautious cunning yet undemonstrated by the teens' foes, making Robin wonder just how advanced their programming was.

"Stripwire," Jason yelled, "We'll use your junk pile."

The goggled Streetbeat's robotic arm sprouted a circular blade that pushed his attackers back. "Though regrettable, I find the loss of my projects to be acceptable."

Grunting an acknowledgement, Jason twisted around. "Goth, drop the shield. Magnum, help the princess get these things to Strip's workshop. Juice, you'll be our Sunday Punch."

As Raven's shield melted away, a reenergized Starfire worked in tandem with Magnum to force the robots back. The role reversal was a welcome change from the fight a few moments beforehand. "How did the Jason know of my royal nature?" she asked Raven in bewilderment.

Refocusing her soul self into vicious sickles, Raven sliced a skeleton apart and drove the rest into an inevitable retreat. "I'm still working through 'Goth'."

Working together, the two teams circled the remaining robots and pushed them back, forcing them together atop the scavenged technology Stripwire had accumulated. Those robots that didn't cooperate were tossed bodily by Cyborg or Queenie. Robin stood shoulder to shoulder with Jason as they braced their respective weapons against flailing claws, driving back five times their number through sheer force of will. Within minutes, the superior numbers were packed together like sardines, unable to move.

"Juice, do it," Jason grunted, straining against the skeletons' mechanical muscles.

The hooded teen's robes swished with his panicked movements behind Starfire and Raven. "I can't," he insisted. "If I power up, it'll toast all of you."

"Raven," Robin barked, "Can you—"

"Yes." She looked back at Juice, and said, "Go."

"Everyone get ready to jump clear." His hand reached around and pulled away the stifling robes, revealing albino parchment skin that clung to an underfed frame. Tattered pants dangled from his bony hips and miniscule waist. His taut, withered ribcage looked fit to burst from his chest. He rubbed his bare scalp and sighed, giving silent prayer that his friends wouldn't be hurt. "Geronimo," he muttered, and made a running dive into the writhing swarm of metallic skeletons.

The instant he sailed overhead, Raven dropped her psionic battering ram that kept her section of the circle at bay, and instead brought the entirety of her power into a domed bubble that trapped Juice in with the remainder of their foes. For several seconds, the skeletons tore at Juice, getting in each other's way in eagerness to finish the metahumans off. Then, with an agonized shriek, he exploded into pure energy. It flowed from his fingertips and rolled out of his mouth, scorching his pale frame. His shapeless blue eyes cried tears of electricity that rushed into the dozens of conductors surrounding him.

Above Juice's tortured howl, and the mounting wails of the dying robots, Cyborg's superior hearing picked up the telltale whine of overloading power cores. "Those things are going to blow!"

"Drop th' shield," Queenie insisted, "We've gotta get him outta there."

Raven's heart skipped a beat as she watched Juice collapse, unconscious and smoking from his own power. She heard Stripwire speaking as if he stood a great distance away, instead of right next to her. "Impossible," he deadpanned, "If uncontained, the resulting explosion will annihilate Sanctuary and all of its occupants."

"Your teleporter," Robin began before the blue boy cut him short.

"I can't," he moaned. "Even out cold, Juice's got enough in him to fry me!"

Terra stepped forward, still holding her dirt spear. "But not me," she said. The spear dissolved in her hands, pouring over her fingers and palms into a set of brown gloves. "I'm grounded."

The whine of thirty overloading power cores became deafening. "Do it!" Robin and Jason shouted together.

Blink grabbed Terra by the waist, and the pair vanished in a flash, reappearing inside of Raven's soul bubble. Protected by her earthen gloves, Terra clamped down on Juice's arm. The trio rode atop the rolling mass of robots, whose melting ribcages crackled with excess power. Then the Titans and the Streetbeat lost sight of their allies as the inside of the bubble became pure fire. Raven cried out, dropping to her knees, but never let her shield waver.

"Terra!" shrieked Starfire as the ground rumbled beneath their feet. The rolling flames faded, leaving only a pool of glowing slag and scrap. No sign of their friends remained as Raven dropped the shield, allowing a blast of blistering air to escape into the rest of the room. "They are exploded," Starfire sobbed.

A familiar voice coughed from several feet back. "Not quite," the blonde geokinetic coughed, letting Juice's unconscious form fall to the ground. "But it was a little closer than I usually like to cut it."

Terra's bones cracked as Starfire swooped in and snatched her into a tremendous hug. Behind them, Blink slouched against the filthy floor, heaving in great lungfuls of air as though he had just run a marathon. "Never," he panted, "'Ported that many before."

The children of Sanctuary were already poking their heads from a dozen different hiding places. They emerged from beneath blankets, from out of breaks in the crumbling drywall of the walls, from behind the ovens in the kitchen area, and wherever else shelter presented itself. Little faces shone all around the heroes, appearing slowly at first, then in twos and threes. Tiny cheers leapt from their throats as they expressed relief.

Even Robin was cautiously optimistic, lessening his scowl as he clapped the teleporter on the shoulder. "Nice work, Blink." The younger boy shook off his exhaustion and beamed at the praise. Robin looked around, surveying the damage. A glance back at the hole and its green elephant plug reminded him that they weren't finished yet. "Raven, hang back and rest."

Rubbing at her aching temples, Raven still managed to send her patented annoyed glare in his direction through the massive headache pounding in her skull. "Gee," she snorted, "Thanks."

Jason pushed past Robin and the others, already returning his grip to his chipped broadsword. "Let's finish this," he growled. "Strip, Mag, Queenie, let's go." He glared back at Robin and his brigade, and said, "Hold your people back to pick off any stragglers and keep the kids out of the way. And tell your shapeshifter to move when I tell him."

Stressful situation or no, Jason's attitude had worn through the last of Robin's patience. "His name's—" The changeling in question began trumpeting in panic, waving his trunk about and flapping his giant ears. "Beast Boy? What's the problem?"

Before the panicked pachyderm could tootle a response, he was lifted and thrown bodily from the hole. He morphed in midair, his elephant shriek becoming a high-pitched wail before Cyborg stepped in and snatched his pal from the air. Safe in Cyborg's arms, Beast Boy moaned and rubbed his aching posterior. "My poor, abused butt!"

He was unceremoniously dumped onto the floor. "Shake it off, Salad Head," his friend advised Beast Boy. "Looks like we're not done yet."

Tense with anticipation, Titan and Streetbeat alike waited for a renewed swarm of silvery skeletons to crawl from the tunnel. Instead, a single hand, painted white and larger than the hood of the T-Car, crunched into the floor. A domed head followed the hand out, swiveling a red monocular glare in a wide arc that covered the room. It stopped first on the teen heroes, then continued onto the children freshly emerged from hiding.

Terra watched the enormous bot crash through the hole, lifting itself up with arms the size of tree trunks. "What the hell is that?" she gasped.

"That," Jason grimaced, "Is one of the big ones." His knuckles blanched and cracked against the hilt of his sword. "Form up, guys. Drive it back, but don't damage it."

"Wait. What?" Beast Boy tilted his head at the commands as the Streetbeat rushed forward. He looked back at Cyborg and asked, "Weren't we tearing through these guys a minute ago?"

Cyborg shrugged. "When in Rome…" he quipped before charging into battle.

The robot had just gotten its bearings when Queenie leapt up, slamming a sneaker into its armored side. Her kick, powerful enough to topple a tank, did as much damage as a vicious zephyr would have. Queenie bounced off and fell to the ground as the robot swept Jason and Stripwire aside with a single backswing.

Magnum drew out a pair of rusted revolvers and grinned. The barrels began spinning at his invisible touch as he yelled, "Eat shit and die, Gearface!" There were no gunshots, only the whistle of bullets streaking through the air as the spinning chambers of his guns emptied themselves into the robot's face.

The shells exploded against Gearface's metal skin, blinding it a moment and scratching its paint. Then it slapped him away, unconcerned at the irritation he represented. Instead, Gearface rumbled in the direction of the children, who began to scream once more and seek shelter in their broken home. The victory they had hoped so hard for began falling apart right in front of their eyes.

"Titans," Robin barked, "New plan; Take that thing down, no matter what!"

He fell behind as Starfire led a meta-powered charge through the air, flanked by a green eagle and Terra, who rode a disk of dirt. The alien's starbolts tore into the behemoth, blackening its armor as her feathered friend became a screeching pterodactyl that gouged deep lines into Gearface's torso with his talons. Without much earth to work with, Terra dropped to the ground and converted her disk into a floating spearhead, and slammed the point straight into Gearface's breadbasket.

Gearface swatted its aerial attackers away, unfazed by the tiny attacks. Terra dove to the side, but was unable to avoid the enormous finger that cocked back and flicked her hard, slamming her back onto the floor like a sack of dirt. Then Gearface staggered back as a flying stove, encased in obsidian energy, slammed into its torso.

Holding aloft a small arsenal of appliances torn from their places, Raven floated up with a dark scowl on her gray features. "That was a nice break," she shot. "Now let me give you one."

Twin cannons telescoped from Gearface's palms, and its arm swung about. Raven abandoned her remaining quips and her appliances in time to erect an ebony shield. Though protected, the resulting blast of energy knocked her across the room, where an unforgiving wall ended her fall.

Now only Robin and Cyborg remained to stop Gearface, standing between the titanic robot and Sanctuary's children. Cyborg glanced down at the Teen Wonder, shifting his arm into a sonic cannon. "I got the sonic if you've got the boom." With a smile, Robin drew out an explosive disc from his utility belt and prepared to let it fly.

Jason pulled himself up from the floor and spied the two Titans readying their attack. His sword lay forgotten as he sprinted forward, crying out in a panic, "Don't! Don't hurt him!"

Both boys looked away, giving Gearface just the opportunity it needed. Its enormous foot flew forth with uncanny speed and slammed into Robin's armored tunic. Two prongs lanced out of the robot's fingertips and burrowed into Cyborg's chest, delivering a devastating charge of electricity that shorted him out. Still sparking and sizzling with red power, Cyborg was lifted into the air by the twin prongs and swung like a flail, striking Jason and bowling the teen off of his feet.

Robin lay on his back, groaning, his disc lost in the flight. The double vision swimming behind his mask coalesced into a single, looming robot as Gearface pounded the floor in its approach. The monoptic red lens in its domed head swiveled to rest on him as it drew a gigantic fist back, preparing a finishing blow. Robin's arm rose involuntarily to block the shot, even as his mind realized how ridiculous the maneuver was. His eyes squeezed shut as he prepared for oblivion.

He felt the blow rattle all throughout his frame as the fist slammed into his open palm. Still blinded by his own momentary panic, Robin wondered if death felt so very much like life. It was only when he risked cracking a single blank lens open that he saw that he was, in fact, not dead at all. Instead, Gearface's fist sat in his palm, which quivered beneath the terrifying force, but held nonetheless.

Gearface stopped a moment and considered the new development. It pulled its fist back, dragging Robin's arm along with it until his fingers and palms popped out of the indentation his block had made. Even as Robin stared in awe, Gearface drew its foot back and lashed out, catching Robin off guard once more. The Teen Wonder sailed through the air and landed, sprawled out and unmoving.

The cords drilled into Cyborg reeled him back into the robot's waiting grasp. Even as the Titan came into its hand, its other launched a second set of prongs into Stripwire's still frame. The Streetbeat shuddered and groaned at the electrical shock, unable to fight back as the mechanical giant drew him in as well.

Terrified shrieks rose from the children as Gearface's torso blossomed open and erupted with a wave of spiraling nets that leapt from its chest with a startling bang. There were no more heroes to protect them, and so they tried to run, without success. Their flailing bodies crushed together as the nets snared them and drew closed, dragging them across the floor. Legs and arms protruding from the gaps in the nets flailed uselessly.

Staggering to his feet, Jason caught sight of his children being swallowed into Gearface's body. "No!" he screamed as the robot's chest ratcheted closed. With a Streetbeat in one hand and a Titan in the other, Gearface stepped back to the hole and vanished down into the dark void. "NO!"

Jason's tortured yelling drew Robin out of his daze. He awoke to find a golden hand stretched out to help him, with sorrowful green eyes hovering above. Robin took Starfire's hand and slogged to his feet. A whole new set of aches awaited him, protesting the sudden movements, but they went unanswered as Starfire led him in a rush over to the breach. Part of him wondered if anyone else had seen the miracle that had occurred beneath Gearface's fist, but he resolved himself to confront the issue later.

One by one, the remaining heroes pulled themselves back to the origin of the battle. "Anybody get the number of that freight train?" a battered Beast Boy babbled. "I think it tried to turn my head into a depot." His hands grasped at his head, twisting it until a loud series of pops worked their way out of his neck.

Raven pulled back her hood and blew the hair from her eyes. "It would be the first time anyone got any use out of it," she assured him, making a face at the disgusting noises his spinal readjustment made. Then she looked about, taking count of their combined forces, and asked the inevitable; "Where's Cyborg?"

Whirling upon the gathered guests, Jason's anguish transmuted into a blind rage. "What the hell was that?" he demanded of the Titans, "I said drive it back, not annihilate it!"

"Jason," Blink murmured, taking refuge behind a wide-eyed Terra.

He focused his furious eyes on Beast Boy. "And you," he snarled, "Why didn't you keep that hole plugged, you booger-skinned freak? Another second, and we would have been ready."

All around them, the remaining children were crying or looking on in horror as their guardian flipped out at Jump City's heroes. Readjusting his ragged hood, Juice's blue pinpoints of light rested on Jason. "Hey, c'mon," he said.

Jason's hands snaked out and grabbed hold of the front of Beast Boy's uniform. "They're gone," he howled, "Because _you_ couldn't—"

Queenie beat the rest of the Titans to the punch, before they could knock Jason senseless for laying hands on their teammate. She grasped her leader from behind, wrapping her huge hands around his ribcage and hauling him off of his feet. Jason released his grip on Beast Boy and yelped as one of his own turned him upside down, suspending him several feet above the floor as if he weighed nothing. "Queenie," he yowled, "Put me DOWN!"

She didn't bat an eye at his struggling, and kept him perfectly still. "No," she retorted in a calm, no-nonsense tone. "You ain't getting' flipped until you stop flippin' out. Not get your head outta your ass, Jace, and stop yelling at them. You're makin' the kids cry."

The tears and sobs of his children reached Jason at last. His protests quelled and he grew still, folding his arms and drawing his enraged features back into their ordinary scowl. Sensing the change, Queenie righted him, and even dusted his jacket off. A deep breath whistled in his nostrils, and he looked ready to start up again. But the air rushed out in a sigh, and he bent down to retrieve his sword and return it to its sheath. "They've got Stripwire," he uttered, turning to the door and stalking off.

"Hold up," Robin said, stopping him with his staff. "You're not going anywhere until you tell us why you wanted that monstrosity intact." Considering the thousands of useless robot parts strewn at their feet from the first half of the battle, the strategy made no sense whatsoever.

Jason looked past the Titans to his own friends. Each of them expressed an opinion silently, and the vote was unanimous. He brushed Robin's bo out of the way and continued on. "I'll show you. Guys, do what you can in here."

Their procession exited in silence as Jason led the Titans, accompanied by Queenie. The rest of the Streetbeat remained behind to clean up the mess and comfort the children while their leader brought the Titans outside and around to the rear of the old building. There, the tattered remains of a small garden squatted in disarray, destroyed by years of neglect. In the back corner, near the wrought-iron fence, a small shanty of a shed wiled away its remaining years by weathering time's ravages.

"Before we called you," Jason explained as they made for the shed, "One of those big ones attacked us, right here in the streets."

"You took it down?" Terra's eyes grew as she took on a new appreciation for these street urchins.

Jason shook his head. "This one wasn't as tough as the one in there. Whoever's hitting us is fast with the upgrades." They reached the shed, and he began working the rusted door open. "Anyway, I managed to cut it until it powered down. This…" His face crinkled at the memory. "This blue liquid poured out of the top. Smelled sort of like rubbing alcohol."

The door opened with one last squeal of protest, revealing a smaller version of the bot that had trounced them moments ago. It lay in a heap on the dusty floor, clearly powered down and not a threat. Queenie walked over to the bot's domed cranium, which looked like it had been jammed roughly back into place. "After we opened it up, we figured out why these things're attacking us," she explained. At Jason's nod, she dug her fingers into the bot's alloy and wrenched the head free.

A lump of pinkish, spongy material slid out onto the dirt with a sickening slurp. It was covered in a thin coat of bluish gel that continued to dribble out of the bot's stumpy neck. As realization set in among the Titans, Jason's stance became clear. Raven's hair floated into the air as her eyes grew dark. Terra sobbed and buried her face into Beast Boy's chest. The shapeshifter looked greener than usual, and seemed in need of a shoulder to cry on as well. Robin and Starfire, both trained as warriors, endured the shock a little better on the outside. When her hand slipped into his, he squeezed back and said nothing about it.

"What is that?" whimpered Terra, unable to look.

Cold, glassy eyes stared back at Jason from a shaven skull that sprouted a host of circuitry and tubing. "That," he said in a husky hush, "Is Bobby Thurman. He's eight years old, and he wants to be a fireman when he grows up."

"How could anyone do something like this?" Beast Boy squeaked. "How can someone get away with this?"

Tears trickled down Jason's hollow cheeks, leaking from the corners of his hard eyes. "Because no one ever misses a few runaways," he whispered, gazing down at the boy he had failed.

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	10. Sanctuary: Relating

* * *

**Teen Titans  
****Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Sanctuary**: _Relating_

SYSTEMS ERROR DETECTED.

PRIMARY CIRCUITRY OVERLOAD. COGNITIVE AND SENSORY FUNCTIONS OFFLINE. REROUTING COMMAND FUNCTIONS TO SECONDARY PATHWAYS.

"Uhnnn."

SECONDARY PATHWAYS ACTIVATED. COGNITIVE FUNCTION RESTORED. NEURAL CAPACITY 88. PERFORMING SYSTEMS CHECK…

Where was he?

PRIMARY DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS OFFLINE. SECONDARY DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS OFFLINE. TERTIARY DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS OFFLINE. ESTIMATED PHYSICAL POWER/RESPONSIVENESS 15.

The Titans. The Children. Was everyone all right? He remembered prepping a Sonic Boom combo with Robin, ready to send it right down Gearface's throat, and then…Well, and then he was here, which was nowhere at all.

REBOOTING OPERATING SYSTEM. SENSORY SYSTEMS REINITIALIZING.

He would have called out, but he had no voice, and no throat to produce a voice with, and no ears to hear a response. His disappointment might have been greater if he had eyes to see anyone around to answer him. But then, one needed a body to house all that, and as far as he knew, he had none.

ORAL SENSORS ONLINE.

And just like that, a mouth. Coppery tang mixed with the taste of greasy motor oil. It took him a moment to recognize the flavor as that of the fluid his father had pumped into him in place of blood.

OLFACTORY SENSORS ONLINE.

More oil, of a much lower grade than the premium stuff that kept him running. More blood, but the two were not mixed evenly as they were inside him. Their strength wavered as they fought for dominance in the air. Sweat. Salt. A stench worse than any foul odor his green, gangly teammate had ever cooked up.

TACTILE NET ONLINE.

Pain. Every single square inch of organics he had left, aching and burning, rubbed raw with electricity. The cool tingle of a warm breeze danced between the pain. Sensors in his metallic forearms spoke to his CPU of cold, metallic bands at his wrists. His chatterbox leg signals reported a similar sensation down at his ankles.

AURAL SENSORS ONLINE.

The familiar hiss of a distant torch welding alloys together. A steady drip, drip, drip of liquid falling, striking a puddle of itself with steadfast rhythm. Whimpering, sobbing, pleas for help, for release, that went unanswered. A lone, calm voice that repeated his name over and over.

OCCULAR SENSORS ONLINE.

The ocean of black roiled, then derezzed. Pixels swam in a dizzying loop, caught in a whirlpool as his eyes came back into function. With renewed focus, Cyborg willed the pixels to stop, and they ordered themselves in a high-definition representation of the world around him. There was only a moldy wall of cement in his immediate field of vision, but Cyborg was pleased nonetheless. Something was infinitely better than nothing.

"—yborg, wake up. Wake up, Cyborg. Cyborg, wake up. Wake up—"

Cyborg cut the repetitive monotone off with a groan, and blinked his slate eye with a heavy lid. "I'm up," he grunted, "I'm up. Knock it off."

"My apologies," the droning voice of Stripwire said next to him. "I was merely concerned that our captor had disabled you permanently. A daunting prospect, considering our already grim predicament."

It took herculean effort to pivot his head, and in the end, Cyborg was sorry he did. He himself was the last link in a chain of prisoners, bound to the wall by metal shackles hastily bolted into the crumbling cement. Stripwire was to his right. One of his arms was strung up like Cyborg's, bolted to the wall behind them, but the other, his mechanical limb, was simply gone. His empty sleeve flapped with each calculated struggle the young techno-hybrid made. And beyond Stripwire, a sight that ruptured Cyborg's six-chambered heart; a string of Sanctuary's children, trussed up just like the heroes. A few of the older boys still thrashed against their bonds fruitlessly. The younger ones sobbed and trembled, or stood in silent tears, or demanded to be set free.

Cyborg shook his head, trying to buck the digital cobwebs from his mind. "Where are we?"

As always, Stripwire remained the picture of calm. "Underground, as near as I can deduce. I have been online approximately one hour, nineteen minutes, twenty-seven seconds. It has been three hours, fifteen minutes, forty-two seconds since our capture…mark."

The persistent hiss of a wielding torch teased Cyborg's ears. He followed the noise back to a flickering illumination, the brightest light in the dark prison. A line of robotic chassis spanned the far wall to his right, bearing a resemblance to the behemoth that had walloped him back in Sanctuary. One of the middle frames had a pair of legs sticking out of it, as well as a rubber hose attached to a stationary fuel tank near the still bot's feet. The exposed interior of that bot flashed in time with the sound of fusing metal.

"Who's the Robot Master over there?" Cyborg asked with a nod in the legs' direction.

Stripwire shrugged as best he could. "Truthfully," confessed the young guardian, "I had hoped you could answer that very inquiry for us." Cyborg's look of confusion spurred him on, "Upon my reactivation, I found our captor in the process of adjusting several of your systems. He seemed confident in his labors, suggesting intimate understanding of your operations."

A total systems check flashed in Cyborg's vision as he recalled his startup procedures. "My weapons are all offline," he said. "And my muscles have been toned down." He pulled against his bonds to no avail. Normally he could have ripped the bolts right out of the wall, or even lifted the wall itself. Now he had the proportionate strength of a bowl of sugar-free gelatin. "I can't get out."

"No doubt the intent behind our captor's administrations," reasoned Stripwire. He considered the space around them a moment as Cyborg continued his useless struggles against their bonds. The skin above the rim of his dark goggles wrinkled as his mind raced. "I fear our situation has grown with great severity into a quandary far beyond our immediate ability to counter."

Cyborg sighed and sagged against his shackles. "English, dude," he groaned.

"That was English."

"Shorter English."

Once again, Stripwire lapsed into a thoughtful pause, searching for an appropriate phrasing. A colloquialism that Magnum frequented came to mind, and Stripwire felt it appropriate to within an infinitesimal margin of error. Clearing his throat, he said, "We're boned."

The comment cut short each of the children's struggles. Their heads snapped over to their protector and his gloomy assessment. Fresh tears welled up in the eyes of a little girl to his right. Her grimy face already had fresh, clean trails where her tears had cut through the dirt. Now her bottom lip trembled at the defeatist attitude her hero presented.

Cyborg watched the hope drain from their faces. He could have kicked Stripwire, if his foot could be freed for such an engagement. Accurate assessment or not, the last thing those kids needed was to panic and lose faith. "We are not boned," he assured the kids. "We are going to get out of here. All of us."

"An attractive proposal," Stripwire said. "But how do you intend to achieve it?"

His systems check complete, Cyborg looked over their limited options. A list of systems glowed behind his eyes, most of them flashing red with dysfunction. Any system that might have freed them had been shut down and refused to activate. Likewise, his communicator was offline. There would be no calls for help. But through the gloom, he spotted a single ray of hope.

"My auxiliary transponder," whispered Cyborg. "It's still active."

Stripwire shook his head. "If we are underground, I suspect the signal will not reach the surface."

"Won't have to." Cyborg smiled to himself. "If I know Robin, he's already led the gang down that hole on a full-out charge. They can follow the signal right to us."

Stripwire still had another hole to punch in Cyborg's balloon. "Any signal will be bounced around in Jump City's sewer system. It was appear as though the signal is coming from multiple directions. They will not know where to go."

And Cyborg had another patch. "I don't know how you Streetbeat do it," he groused, "But the Titans don't give up. Long as one of our own is missing, we don't quit. They'll find us somehow, believe me." He grinned at the kids, and felt relieved when a few gave him hesitant smiles in return. "In a little while, we'll be up to our eyeballs in reinforcements."

"Technically, they will be rescuers, not reinforcements. We are still captives."

"Oh, we're getting off this wall before they get here," Cyborg retorted. He glowered at the flashing legs, aching to return the favor their owner had done him. "Weapons or not, I'm gonna finish this fight."

"I assure you, I desire the same," Stripwire said, "Despite my being similarly…disarmed."

Cyborg looked back over at Stripwire's empty sleeve. In the face of all their adversity, Cyborg couldn't help but laugh at the accidental joke.

* * *

For the eighth tine since entering the sewer system, Robin vowed he would burn the unfortunate uniform clinging to his sweaty body just as soon as this topsy-turvy mission came to a close. The pricey green lycra/Kevlar weave clinging to his legs deserved far better than incineration, but fear of the unstoppable stench that scorched the hairs from his nose made his mind up for him. He would take no chances that the smell could follow him home and remain with him. The uniform had to go. Would that he could do the same with his skin, but sadly, he could only scrub and pray. 

Behind him, Jason's clumsy footing sloshed the ankle-high slurry, causing Robin to curse under his breath and reconsider his choice of partner. Stealthy situations always suited Robin best when he worked alone. He glided through the blackened sewers, guided by a set of night-vision goggles liberated from an equipment locker back at the T-Car, one of many they had issued to Titan and Streetbeat alike. Jason wore such a set, allowing him to see the cylindrical tunnel as clear as a black and white day, same as Robin. But unlike his counterpart, who watched for obstacles to ghost past without noise, the Streetbeat leader used his only to ensure even footing. Jason simply splashed his way through, as if fording the world's smelliest river. Most grating to the Titan's nerves, however, was that in addition to the reckless noise, he also produced an endless stream of snide, accusatory grumbling.

"This is pointless," Jason said again. It had become something of a mantra for the teen. He stepped over a low pipe, kicking up more waves of unfathomable filth. "We should be tracking them above ground, not down here in the shitways."

The communicator in Robin's grasp trembled as his fingers flexed unconsciously. Its display screen, set low to accommodate its user's starlight scope, displayed their path in a faded bar of red against the city sewer schematic downloaded into it. "The signal from Cyborg's transponder isn't reaching the surface. We have to retrace the robot's path if we're going to find him, Stripwire, and the rest of your missing kids."

Jason evidently wasn't impressed with Robin's logic. "Is that right," he shot. "So what about the rest of those kids, huh? What are we going to do once Mister Roboto doubles back for the rest of them?"

"It won't go back," Robin said.

"Says you," retorted Jason.

The careful silence of his steps shattered as Robin whirled to face his critical partner. "Yes," he said, exasperated, "Says me."

"And what makes you so goddamn sure of yourself, Robin?" Unfazed by the anger in Robin's voice, Jason seemed actually pleased by it. He said, "You split up all our forces and sent them on a wild goose chase through these tunnels. Sanctuary is totally defenseless now, thanks to you. What the hell gives you the right?"

For the very first time since their meeting one another, Robin lost control of his temper. His free hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of Jason's shirt. Pivoting, he slammed the larger teen up against the slimy side of the sewer, unbothered by the vast difference in their size. Even Jason seemed startled by the outburst and the unexpected strength behind it, for he was without words as Robin said, "Look at their tactics. In case you were somewhere else at the time, your little robot chums threw everything they had at us. I've stopped enough robberies to know what a smash-and-grab looks like."

"Get your damn hands off me!" Jason shoved at Robin's hand, expecting to sweep the Teen Wonder's wiry arm aside. Instead, it felt like his hands struck a pipe of the strongest steel, as movable as the conduits they had been tripping over. The surprises kept coming as Robin didn't even notice his efforts.

Their faces closed to within inches of one another, allowing Robin's voice to drop to a grizzly Gotham growl. "Those things aren't going back to Sanctuary. They have what they want, and they have two metahumans with advanced cybernetics, and the only way we can take all that back and figure out who's screwing with you is to trudge through a river of I-Don't-Want-To-Know-What using THIS," and he jammed his communicator against Jason's low-light lens, "Like a Geiger counter, following Cyborg's signal until we reach the right path and track them down."

The communicator dropped down, but Robin's nose still pressed into Jason's. Small, painful welts cropped up in Jason's chest where the green knuckles dug into him. Robin continued, "Now, I don't know why you hate me and my friends, and to tell you the truth, I don't give a flying frell why. The Teen Titans are here to find missing children, and because YOU decided to be less than forthcoming, that mission has expanded to include two of our own. So either help us help you, or stay out of our way, and so help me, if you don't do one or the other, I will break your limbs and leave you facedown in this slop until the bubbles stop."

Unseen behind the goggles, Jason blinked at the verbal slap. Robin's was the second tirade to give him pause in his whole life, and the first since running away from home. Not that he would ever let that pipsqueak bird know it. "I have just one question," he growled back.

"What?" The word rattled past Robin's bared teeth.

With all the stoicism of an Easter Island statue, Jason deadpanned, "What does 'frell' mean?"

Robin sighed in disgust and released his grip on the tattered shirt. "Titans," he grunted into his communicator, "Report in."

* * *

Raven shuddered as something floated by and brushed against her bare leg. Her violet eyes clamped shut, ensuring that she could not see whatever it was. "We're still following the signal," she told Robin through her own communicator. "It's still reading hot and cold. We'll call when we find something. Stop bothering me." She thumbed the channel closed, letting her sickeningly cheerful canary communicator resume its search for Cyborg. 

A throat cleared behind her, accompanied by a sloshing through the muck that kept in time with her own. "So," the tired voice asked, "They haven't found anything either?"

Pressure began a steady buildup between her temples. Raven rubbed the bridge of her nose and wondered what way would be best to tear Robin apart for pairing her up with him. "No, Juice," she said, "They haven't. If they had, I would tell you. That was just Robin acting out his need to control everything."

"Oh." The electric blue of his eyes bobbed up and down, the only part of him bright enough to pierce the black veil. Of course, Raven's unique heritage left her without any problems navigating the dark. Her vision managed the harshest dark as easily as the brightest day, perhaps better. But as Juice had discovered long ago, glowing eyes were a huge disadvantage to seeing in the dark. He could only see the same blue blur he always saw when daylight was no longer around to overpower his eyes' electric bioluminescence. And since he would have shorted out a pair of night vision goggles, that left him with only one method of navigation, a method that didn't seem to like him very much. "So, uh, are we finding anything?"

A long pause. More sloshing. Then, "No."

"Oh," he said again.

They walked on in silence. For a moment, Raven let her attention drift back to blocking out that hideous squishing feeling seeping into her boots (boots that she intended to banish to a dimension of pure fire or pure stink, she hadn't decided which) and the indescribable stench destroying her nose. She squashed her jealousy over the rubber waders given to Juice from Sanctuary's endless stores of junk, reminding herself that it was the only thing keeping him from inadvertently pumping lethal amounts of electricity into the liquid at their feet.

Juice didn't help matters by breaking their silence by speaking again. "Are we finding anything?"

Such a stupid question broke her concentration, and the sensations flooded back, irritating her further. "Yes," she said, "We've pinpointed their exact location. I've simply kept it secret because I didn't want our date to end."

The glowing pinpricks narrowed. "That wasn't funny." Then they widened. "This is a date?"

And the pressure exploded into a full headache. "Do you possess some strange need to say idiotic nonsense?" She never thought the day would come when she longed for Beast Boy's conversation, but she would have teleported the shapeshifter then and there if it meant an end to Juice's awkward feelings overloading her empathic senses.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. "It's just…you don't talk much." Raven said nothing to this, so he added, "Which makes it harder to hear you."

"Mmm."

Carefully, he said, "I still can't see."

"Mmm."

"And you said I could follow your voice," he reminded her.

"Mmm."

"Sooooo…"

Raven sighed the sigh of the damned, and tried not to imagine the stink Robin would raise if she pulled his limbs off with her mind. Splitting up may have been the fastest way of tracking down Cyborg's bouncing signal, but she began to wonder if it was really worth all the headache. Those thoughts she stamped out immediately. It was her father's influence talking. "What would you like to talk about?"

The question caught Juice by surprise. He, like so many others, never expected to win an argument against Raven. "Okay," he drawled, "Where are you from?"

Even through the dark, Juice could see her eyes flash back at him. "Azarath," she grunted with a tone that left no room for further questions on the subject.

"Right," he said, "Azarath." His lips popped as he felt out another topic. "Okay, what do you like to do?"

"I read."

Finally, something neutral they could expand on. "What do you read?" Maybe he had struck gold with this topic choice—

"Books."

And maybe not. Not was cool, too. He could always try again. "What's your family like? I've never seen any adults hanging around your Tower in the news clippings, but you guys must have come from someplace, right? Any sisters or brothers? What's your mom like? Or how about your dad? Are—"

All his life, Juice had lived with his bioelectric field. It kept him from any meaningful contact in his life, and he hated it. If ever given the slightest choice, he would have done away with it before it finished its gruesome design and burned him from the inside out. But one thing it did do for him was keep his body temperature at a toasty, healthy level. He had never needed a coat in the coldest of winters, only keeping his bundles to protect his friends. No matter the temperature, no matter his own exposure, Juice simply didn't understand what it was to be cold.

This is why it frightened Juice with greater force of terror than any he had ever felt when the temperature around them dropped twenty degrees as Raven growled, "I have no family."

"R-right," he murmured. "No family." The quiet endured for as long as he could keep frustration from dominating his mouth. "Is there anything we can talk about? Anything you want to talk about?"

"I don't want to talk at all," Raven said, "And I don't know why you want to, either. You can hear me sloshing around in this muck as well as anything," she groused, trying not to think of the sludge seeping between her toes.

Juice shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "I guess…I just thought we were sorta alike. You know, we're both outsiders. Loners."

The admission stopped Raven in her tracks. She considered the lonely Streetbeat, and for a moment, she felt her resolve cracking. Juice had never known the touch of another human being. He could never hug, or shake hands, or high five, or any one of a thousand simple forms of contact that normal humans took for granted every day. She didn't need telepathy to know how torturous his plight was. As a child, she had been denied any contact from her mother and anyone else in Azarath by the Elders. She knew his pain.

But Juice could feel. Her empathic senses swam with his concern. She drank deep of his horror, and felt every ebb of his fear. She could drown in his longing, and felt slight tendrils of attraction snaking her way amidst the tempest of emotion. Laughter, friendship, heartache, sorrow and joy were all his to experience freely.

Bitterness swamped Raven's thoughts, a bitterness with a disturbing monster poisoning the feeling, just as it poisoned every dark emotion she ever felt. Her squishy steps resumed as she smashed the emotion back down and uttered, "You don't know what loneliness is."

* * *

"Ooh," Starfire moaned, "We are no closer to finding friend Cyborg, or your Stripped Wiring, or the missing childlings in these catacombs of sewage." She hovered a few inches above the slurry, following her communicator's hot-and-cold instructions through the twisting tubes beneath Jump City. The worry on her brow, masked by a pair of night vision goggles, fluctuated as badly as Cyborg's signal's strength. Her frequent and negative reports to Robin were beginning to dull even her endless optimism. 

"Stripwire," Queenie corrected automatically. "But yeah, this pretty much stinks. And I ain't talkin' about just the smell."

"Even with our combined efforts, our friends are no closer to rescue," Starfire's head hung in shame as she bore the brunt of their failure entirely on her own shoulders. The weight of such a burden dipped her toes in the gunk, forever ruining Starfire's favorite purple boots. "Your hatred of the Titans is justified. We promised aid, but now your plight has only worsened. I invite you to perform an appropriate outchewing upon me."

"Whoa, ease up, girl." Queenie rested an oversized sleeve on Starfire's shoulder. It sunk the floating girl's feet further into the filth, but assuaged a fraction of her guilt as well. "Who said anything about this being your fault? And who said we hate you?"

"But—"

She scoffed. "Nobody knew all those creepy Skeletors were comin'. I saw you in there. You 'n' yours fought just as hard 's any Streetbeat. Saw you take one right in the chops from th' big one, too." Queenie shook her head. "If you hadn't been there, we woulda taken an ass whoopin'. Steada just losin' some, we might all be dead."

"And…" Hope spilled across Starfire's voice. "You do not hate the Titans?"

"Hate you? Are you kiddin' me? Th' Teen Titans are th' biggest heroes those kids got. You 'n' Robin might as well be Batman and Wonder Woman for all they care. Hell," Queenie grinned, "Even I love seein' you guys in action. That time you were chasin' that one magic blue dude—"

"You mean the Mumbo," Starfire recalled.

"Yeah," Queenie's voice echoed excitedly in the sewer, "Mambo. Anyway, I saw you guys tear him up. It was frickin' awesome! Juice never shuts up about Raven, and I think Magnum keeps a picture of you 'n' her under his pillow."

Nothing could have lifted Starfire's spirits more. She rose out of the muck and caught Queenie's broad shoulders in a spine-splintering hug that tore Queenie free of the ground as well. "Wondrous!" she exclaimed. "I share great admiration for your team as well, and am honored to call you 'friend'."

"Okay," Queenie squeaked between blue lips. "Air…"

A puzzling thought crossed Starfire's mind and released Queenie from the constrictor hug. "But your leader, the Jason, does not share such positive opinions of us," she insisted. Her search for Cyborg was put on hold a moment as she sought to understand the dissenting concepts. "He berates us openly, and blames Beast Boy for the Giant One's escape."

"Oh." The right words were hard for Queenie to find. She scowled behind her own goggles. "See, it isn't that Jason hates you. He just hates everyone, really."

"Such an attitude is not healthy," Starfire noted.

"No," agreed Queenie, "It ain't. You should really see him with th' kids, Star. He's kind, an' gentle, an' cool. I ain't never seen him lose his cool with any of 'em, no matter what. Before this shit with those robots started, he was nothin' like he is now."

"Then why does he lose his cool with us?" Starfire didn't understand. "We wish only to help."

"And that's just th' problem." Starfire's confusion intensified. "Jason's gotta lotta pride, Star. A lot. Makes him pigheaded sometimes, but especially when he needs help th' most. Right now, he knows we can't do this without you, and its stickin' in his craw somethin' fierce."

Starfire nodded with hesitant comprehension. "He is most adamant about his desire to see us removed."

A wistful sigh blew from Queenie as she folded her hands over her head. "I jus' wish you could see him like I do," she said. "Brave, an' loyal, an' strong, stronger than anyone I know."

Giggling stopped Queenie right in her tracks. She looked over to see Starfire suppressing another titter. "I do not believe anyone can see Jason the way you do," she teased.

"Say what?"

"I believe you are having 'the crush' for him, yes?"

"Psshh." Queenie waved Starfire's bemused accusation away. "Me, sweet on ol' Jace? I mean, sure, he's okay. For a white guy. But c'mon." Starfire's smirk remained solid. "I'm serious!" insisted Queenie.

The smile on Starfire's face broadened. "I am not so certain," she said.

"Well, how about you and bird boy?" Queenie demanded. Starfire blushed as her own weapons of war were turned against her. "What's th' story on you two?"

Fighting the crack in her voice, Starfire said, "Robin is my best friend. He has taught me everything I have learned about Earth culture."

"Uh-huh," said a clearly unconvinced Queenie. "I don't buy that BFO stuff."

"BFO?"

"Best Friends Only," Queenie explained. "I seen the way you look at him. Y'all get hot under the collar when he's around, don't deny it."

"Perhaps," allowed Starfire. Her uneasy shifting ceased as an old excuse returned to her. "But he does not feel such feelings for me."

"Uh-huh," Queenie said again in the exact same tone. "I seen the way he looks at you, too."

Starfire called a picture of Robin's face into her mind. Those wide, white lenses set into her mask stared back at her, hiding a soul she so desperately wanted to know as well as she knew herself. Denying emotions was an alien concept on her world. Only on Earth, the strangest planet Starfire had yet encountered, could she learn such a bizarre custom. And all because of one thin strip of black fabric and two horrible white lenses. Starfire hated Robin's mask more than anything else on Earth, or off it for that matter. "Then you are lucky," she said in a subdued voice, "For I have not."

The silence between them grew uncomfortable, and Starfire's sudden sadness left a bitter, guilty taste in Queenie's mouth. "Well," she said, "We'd better worry about a different couple o' fellahs right now."

Communicator in hand, Starfire began their search once more for the missing. "Yes," she agreed. "The signal grows stronger, if only slightly. I believe we are on the right path."

"Let's hope everyone is having better luck than we are," Queenie added with crossed fingers.

* * *

"Dude, are you sure you know how to use that thing?" Blink groaned, bored out of his skull as he traipsed through last night's dinner. 

Beast Boy snarled and tossed, "For the zillionth time, yes!" over his shoulder. The shapeshifter could not recall a more miserable mission in his life. His nose had shrieked and died upon setting foot in the smelly tunnels. Now it was just a useless growth sitting in the middle of his flawless face, its only remaining function to keep his eyes and his smile separated. They were still no closer to finding his bestest buddy or that other robot guy, even after hours of looking around. But worst of all, this lousy little blue jug head wouldn't quite bugging him. And on top of that, he actually did not know if he was working his communicator correctly. Either they were headed in the right direction, or Pac-Man was going to town on a red Lightcycle lost in Donkey Kong's living room.

"We're going in circles," Blink whined.

"We are not going in circles," Beast Boy insisted with no real conviction. Without his sharp sense of smell to track their quarry, he felt useless and helpless, and desperately wished Robin were there to lead the way. Robin always knew what to do, or at least he was better than Beast Boy at acting like it. "We're almost there. I'm sure of it."

The teleporter filled the darkened conduit with blinding light as he popped into existence in front of Beast Boy. "C'mon," he pleaded with cockeyed goggles, "Let me see that thing. I bet I can find Strip and your pal in no time."

"No," said Beast Boy.

"Please?"

"No," growled Beast Boy.

"Pleeeaaase?"

"No," shouted Beast Boy.

A deep breath of foul air, then, "Puh-leeeeeeeaaaaassse?"

An enormous lion dominated the space in front of Blink, bristling at the mane and wearing a pair of small night vision goggles across the bridge of its nose. The lion bellowed, making the air tremble with his deafening snarl and knocking Blink down into the disgusting filth. The Streetbeat wore a look of bewildered fright as the lion shrunk back to his normal proportions and readjusted his goggles. "No," said Beast Boy.

"Okay," Blink sneered, "Sheesh." They continued back on their original course with Beast Boy still in the lead. "You're such a lameoid."

A string of nasty curses died behind Beast Boy's bitten lip. However, he did let slip, "Obnoxious little brat."

"Old people are always lameoids," Blink lamented.

"I'm only one year older than you!"

"Oh, so do I have to sell out at fourteen too?"

* * *

Half an hour of silence had thoroughly taught Robin to wish with greater care from then on. Since their little altercation, Jason hadn't said a single word. The Streetbeat instead chose to follow in silence, grunting in acknowledgement whenever a change in direction or a noteworthy obstacle arose. Robin knew what would open up the lines of communication again, but it killed him that he would be the one forced to say it. 

"I'm sorry," he said. True enough, the apology festered in Robin's mouth. He took out his frustrations on a curious sewer rat, chasing it away with his extended bo staff.

"Hmm?" Jason seemed distracted.

Robin repeated, "I'm sorry," and then added, "About earlier. I had no right to snap at you like that." In Robin's mind, he had been totally justified, but little white lies kept the world turning, and besides which, he needed the lines of communication between the Titans and the Streetbeat open when the time came. That wouldn't happen if the teams' leaders couldn't even speak civilly to one another.

"Mmm-hmm."

Several moments went by with all the hustle of an ice age. As the glacial time passed, Robin searched for something innocuous to say. In the end, his mouth led them back down the road neither had been willing to walk yet. "So why do you hate us so much?"

"I thought you said you didn't care." His tone was guarded, suspicious.

Robin shrugged. "I lied. So are you going to answer my question?"

Jason challenged, "Are you going to answer mine?"

It took Robin a moment to recall what Jason was talking about. "Oh. I picked it up from Starfire. I think it's Tamaranian, but she learned English so fast, I'm really not sure how many languages she knows. I'm pretty sure it's a curse, though."

"What makes you say that?"

With a smile, Robin said, "Because she screamed it when Cyborg dropped one of his weights on her foot by accident."

The answer seemed to satisfy Jason. He could tell by Robin's expectant breath that it was his turn now. He considered suggesting to Robin a more worthwhile activity involving his staff and the horse he rode in on, but then thought better of it. Not that he feared the garish, bird-themed hero, but Queenie would get wind of it. Such rudeness would have upset her (probably to the point of hurting him), and who needed that? Constructing a lie would take too much time, which only left him with the truth.

"Honestly?" Jason took a deep breath and braced himself for the blow to his ego. "I'm jealous of you."

Robin processed the answer for a moment. At first, he thought he heard Jason wrong. "Jealous? Of us?"

"Don't screw with me," he snapped. "You all have perfect little lives up in that high, muckity-goddamn-muck T Mansion of yours, driving around in your million dollar car and eating a full meal before going to bed, safe and warm." Jason jabbed a finger at Robin's chest. "You and yours have everything my kids deserve. Everything…"

Robin understood at once. "Everything you can't give them." He nodded. Then he began to laugh. It was a soft kind of chuckle, and it infuriated Jason.

"What's so funny?" he grumbled.

The Titan was quick to ward away Jason's glare with upturned hands. "It's not that," he said. "I've just never thought of my life like that."

"Like what?"

"Perfect." Robin hung his staff across his shoulders, staying a half step ahead so as not to clock Jason by accident. "That 'mansion' of ours is a fortress. State of the art defenses, friend-or-foe recognition, and enough artillery to keep a small army out. You ever wonder why we built it on an island?"

"Never crossed my mind," Jason admitted begrudgingly. "Guess I figured you wanted your very own—"

Robin cut him off, saying, "Because none of it works. I can't tell you how many times some bad guy has come into our home, looking for trouble. Remind me to tell you about the Puppet King some time."

"You're joking."

He was not, and said as much. "Out there, we're a big target drawing a lot of focus away from the city. Which, by the way, can't go three days anymore without some supervillain threatening to turn it into a crater. And guess who gets to deal with it."

"Well, maybe," Jason said. He felt his argument beginning to slip away. "But you all have families to go back to, at least."

This drew a snort from Robin. "Who? Starfire's parents gave her up a hundred parsecs from here. Beast Boy's parents passed away years ago. Cyborg never talks about his dad. I have no idea how long Terra was on the run before she found us. And Raven?" He shuddered. "No one's ever asked Raven about her family without being tossed across the room."

"And you?"

Robin laughed at that. He didn't have many good memories of Jack Drake to recall. The man hadn't even bothered to leave a proper note before winding up face-down in a river upstate. And Batman? "I guess," he said, "If you consider tying me up in chains and leaving me upside down for six hours of escape artistry practice as a father-son activity." He shrugged. "I guess the most family any of us has is each other."

For a long moment, Jason did not speak. His sloshing steps became slow and even as his legs trickled through the water. "I didn't know," he admitted.

"It's all right."

"I still don't like you," Jason told him. "You're all still a bunch of stuck-up, holier-than-thou jerks. But that doesn't give me the right to treat you like shit when you offer to help."

It was rude, half-hearted, but it was the best apology Robin would get, and he knew it. And as long as they were opening up, he figured this to be the perfect time for a question that had bugged him since the mission's inception. "If you want a better life for your kids," he said, "Why not contact the proper authorities? Social Services could find homes for all of them."

"They could."

Jason didn't sound convinced. "Those children deserved homes," Robin insisted. "You and I know better than anyone what it's like to grow up without parents, or food, or a home."

"You and I?"

Bemused, Robin said, "I wasn't always Robin." Then his face sobered again. "Your friends deserve at least as much as we've got. I know those kids deserve a lot more than that."

A hand clamped down on Robin's shoulders and dragged him to a stop. The image inside Robin's goggles as he turned back was one of a Streetbeat trembling with bridled rage. "Listen up," he hissed. "Don't you ever, EVER, tell me how to run my own house." Danger dripped from every word. "I know how to take care of my kids. Their home may not be shaped like a letter, but we get along just fine on our own."

Robin looked him up and down, shaking his head. "I thought I had you figured out." He began circling Jason, who stood stock still against the examination. "Sure, he's an asshole, but he wants what's best for those children." The circle closed, and he stood nose to nose with Jason. Neither leader blinked. Neither backed down. "I'm usually a better judge of character."

"You want me to give them up to total strangers? To adults?" challenged Jason, "Is that it? You want some government drone to swoop down and take them away, and I'm supposed to believe that they'll love them like I do, and understand what they're going through like I do?" He took a step away and yanked the sleeve of his denim jacket back. Even with the black and white limitations of the goggles, Robin could make out a long line of puffy flesh running the length of his forearm. "This," he said, "Is what happens when you talk back to daddy."

Robin swallowed the retort he had been tonguing until that point. "Your father did that," he asked neutrally.

"With this." Jason patted the hilt of his blade, glaring at Robin. "My early inheritance. I ran away when I was twelve. Started swinging the sword until it wasn't so heavy anymore. Found some others like me. When the world started pushing, we pushed back."

Now it was Robin's turn to say, "I didn't know."

Hush with reminiscing, Jason continued, "We get a few now and then that aren't serious. Rich kids having a fight with mommy and daddy. They stay a few nights, and then they're gone." He looked down a minute, drawing on some secret reserve of strength. "Every one of those kids in there is just like me. Someone they love hurt them. Just to make themselves feel big. They hurt them." He looked up, fighting the huskiness seeping into his voice. "Give them up? No. I will never let anyone hurt them again. I'll keep them safe."

"But you can't. Not anymore." Robin wasn't swayed by the searing pain in Jason's tone. "You know it, too."

"This robot thing'll pass."

"And then what?" asked Robin. "Those Bloods we saw on your doorstep. What happens when they decide your little Sanctuary is too tempting? Who's going to stop them?"

"Me," he growled.

"And when you fall? When Queenie and all your other friends go down, who will protect your kids?" Robin sighed. "You've done something amazing with so little. But you can't lock those children up forever in that old church. They deserve more, and so do you. And all you have to do is let someone help you. Let 'us' help you."

Jason did not twitch. "We have some friends to find," he reminded the Titan.

Robin turned away, picking up on Cyborg's twisted transponder signal and continuing their search. It saddened him to know he might have already failed in their mission. He and the other Titans could find Stripwire and the missing children, and free them from the robots and their creator. But without Jason's help and cooperation, the Titans could not save any of them.

* * *

Sheer boredom spurred Cyborg to at last speak to their captor. Hours had passed without incident. The children's cries had trickled to nothing after it became apparent that the engineering wizard that held them prisoner wasn't interested in conversation. Neither was Stripwire, as several attempts on Cyborg's behalf had proven. 

He had tried talking with some of the kids for a time. The one across from Stripwire, a tot of ten named Hakim, was easily the oldest and chattiest of the bunch. Where his younger companions could only whimper in fear, Hakim managed to answer Cyborg's gentle questions in stutters before pleading with the Titan to break free and rescue them. After that, only the sound of their captor's torch kept the maddening silence at bay, and only just. No other soul had entered their dank little slice of sewer, leading Cyborg to believe this to be a one man show. It only made sense to get to know that one man as well as he could, and if nothing else, it would keep him from losing his marbles.

"Hey. Hey, Robot Dude."

Silhouetted by the dim lighting, the figure hardly twitched at Cyborg's calls. He had moved on from the now complete chassis, and now fiddled with what appeared to be some kind of helmet.

"You know, it's pretty low, kidnapping a bunch of squirts like this. But my friend here," and he leaned his head in Stripwire's direction, "Really liked that arm. I think you owe him an apology. And an appendage."

"The latter is preferable to the former," added Stripwire.

The figure continued his work, unaffected by either teen's words. "But what I want to know," Cyborg growled, "Is how you knew how to screw with my systems." He tried zooming in on the shadow's face, but his higher visual functions were likewise muted. It was an unprecedented frustration for him. "Not like I got blueprints you can just Google or anything."

No response.

Cyborg snorted. "Aw, I know you ain't ignoring me. Super strength or no, I'm gonna bust outta here and Booyah! bust your bad guy butt!"

The silhouette stiffened at Cyborg's outburst. Circles of light flashed in his head as he turned toward his prisoners for the first time. He shuffled forward with slow steps, clasping his hands before him. "Victor Stone. I'd recognize that insolent tone anywhere."

Cyborg's jaw dropped as a decrepit old man slothed beneath their light. His lab coat hung across a bony, withered frame, tattered at the hem and covered in a mural of stains, ancient and fresh. A pair of spectacles wriggled on his nose as he smiled at the shocked Titan. "Professor Smith?" murmured Cyborg.

"No longer." The old man eyed Cyborg up and down, snickering at some private joke. "I didn't realize it was you upon our initial encounter. You're all grown up, though not quite how you intended, eh? I see someone put my designs to rather pitiful use."

Stripwire looked between the two with piqued interest, the strongest emotion he had let slip yet. "I can then surmise that you know each other?"

"Intimately," the man once called Smith responded. He sounded distracted, too busy examining Cyborg's cold metal body. His hand extended and ran across the smooth lines of Cyborg's body armor. "After all," he said more to himself than to the boys, "I created the systems that keep this meat puppet running."

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	11. Sanctuary: Rescue

* * *

**Teen Titans  
****Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Sanctuary**: _Rescue_

Magnum rubbed at the raw sewage on his face with the back of his hand and prayed that the incomprehensible taste would someday fade, before he was forced to tear his tongue from his mouth. Thankfully, the night vision goggles had kept the slurry out of his eyes, or those would have to go as well. "Y'know," he said snappishly, "It's really sad how some chicks can't take a freakin' compliment."

A wave of fury kicked up in their footbath as Terra whirled on him, pausing just long enough to shoot, "There was no way 'that' was a compliment," before continuing to fume her way through the sewer.

"I was trying to be nice," he said, chasing after her.

Terra growled. "I never want those words used to describe my ass ever again."

"Lousy, frigid, flat-chested, skinny li'l…"

"Beg pardon?"

"Nothing," he said quickly.

Satisfied, Terra continued to follow her communicator's signal trace as if she had no idea where they were headed. The clueless device still didn't know if they were coming or going. Smell or no smell, it should have been easy; just walk around for a while until she received the proper signal, and then stick to the plan. But each time she chanced to blink, the mangled corpse of that boy spilled out of the robot's skull and into her thoughts. What was his name? Jason had said it, but she couldn't remember. All she could recall was his puffy white flesh, and the way it puckered around the wiring implanted into it. But what was his name?

"Hey, Earth Friendly," Magnum's angry shout drew her back into the sewer. "Which way?" A T intersection stared them in the face. Neither path seemed favorable over its opposite. "C'mon, what's the deal? Use your magic beeper and let's go."

Terra could no longer stand the farce. "We need to stop for a minute," she lied. "The communicator is having trouble sorting out the signal." She leaned up against the concrete wall, ignoring the thick coating of slime that soaked into her monogrammed Titan shirt. "Take a breather. And try not to talk," she added.

He shot her a dirty look and mimicked her stance. "Whatever," he muttered into his chest.

Magnum's attitude rubbed Terra the wrong way, a feat worth mention considering her own stony resolve. When one has lost a teammate, one is expected to show at least simple signs of concern. Or were they? Terra had never been on a team before the Titans. Would they take as little interest in her disappearance as Magnum did in Stripwire's? She resolved herself to never give the other Titans the chance to answer that question. "You're taking all this awfully well," she remarked.

Magnum shrugged. "Been on the streets since I was five. Sewers don't bother me anymore. Pretty good way to keep outta sight, actually. Plus, sometimes you're lucky, and you find a steam tunnel during winter."

"No," Terra said, confused. "I mean, your brother."

"Oh." It was as if the thought never occurred to him. He shrugged again. "I guess."

Now, Terra possessed limited knowledge on how family worked, too. She was an only child, and hadn't been home since her mother passed away. The idea of a normal family baffled her, and she admitted to this shortcoming without qualm. But she had at least a working grasp on how it all worked, and Magnum's attitude flew in the face of that, prompting her to speak up. "Aren't you even a little worried about him?"

Magnum continued to put on a very convincing act of confusion. "Why?"

"Because," she said, "He's…He's your brother. He's—"

"So?"

"So?" repeated a shocked Terra. "So he's your brother. If I had a brother, you can bet I'd be freaking out. I mean, I'm worried sick about Cyborg," she fibbed, "And he's just a friend."

Magnum examined Terra for a moment. Her black and white image hid the red creeping into her cheeks. "Whatever," he said again. "He dies, he lives…all the same to me."

It was clear Magnum wanted the matter dropped. It was also clear Terra would not grant him that. "No," she insisted, "It isn't. He's out there, somewhere, probably scared and alone, and afraid that no one's—"

"You don't know shit," Magnum retorted. His patience hung in tatters on the sharp curses vomiting from his mouth. "Goddamn, just shut your f'king mouth and stay out of it." The river of muck became utterly fascinating, and drew his goggled eyes downward along with his voice. "Strip ain't afraid. He don't get scared, or angry, or happy, or bored, or sad. Hell," he laughed without humor, "I don't know if he even gets hungry anymore, neither."

Terra blinked away her surprise at the outburst. "What…?"

Deep anxiety rattled out of him in a breath of fetid air. "Jason told you about that disease Strip's got." At her nod, he said, "Well, it don't just attack his body. What we don't talk about is what it does to his head." and he tapped his temple as if to illustrate the point. "First time he tried to explain it, my head started hurtin'. He dumbed it down a little for me…a lot. Bottom line, the disease started rotting his brain."

"How…" Terra didn't quite know what to ask or how to phrase it. "How is he still—"

"Alive?" Another hollow laugh rattled out of him. "He found some stuff. Built something. Fiber optics, or nanites, or some'n'. Made something outta nothing, just like he always does." His voice became choked, more so with each passing thought. "He doesn't remember our parents. Barely remembers me. Not a lot before Sanctuary, anyway. It…It did something to him. He don't feel much no more. Happy, 'r sad, 'r mad…"

Terra looked away, deeply ashamed. "I didn't know," she said lamely.

Magnum's voice fossilized. "I lost my brother a long time ago. Whatever's left won't live much longer if we save it or not."

Terra could bear the conversation no more, and let it die. The sewer grew thick with awkward silence. Magnum no longer seemed worthy of her scorn for his foul, chauvinistic mouth. Pity felt far more appropriate, and Terra fond herself with a surprisingly large stock. Such forced indifference toward someone you cared about tossed her stomach about in a perplexed spin cycle. But then, what of her own allegiances?

Her beeping communicator put those questions of loyalty and morality to death. She looked down, spying a new box containing a line of text that consumed the tiny screen. She recognized the signal source at once, and skimmed the message before deleting it. As the message box closed, she noted without surprise that Cyborg's signal was now one solid red line, leading them to a point not far from where she and the Streetbeat stood.

"What is it?" Magnum asked, straightening with more enthusiasm than such a cool customer would be wise to exhibit.

Thumbing a button, Terra reported, "Robin, we've got a solid lock."

_"I see it,"_ came the reply. _"It's an open invitation, with 'trap' written all over it."_

A quick check confirmed Terra's hopes. "Magnum and I are closest. We'll check it out and—"

_"No."_ Robin dashed her hopes for an easy job with one word. _"Don't go in alone."_ His signal grew silent. Terra could almost see him weighing options, mulling the situation over and rubbing his green finger across his chin like he did. _"Schematics show a narrow tunnel leading to the signal source. Rendezvous at the mouth of that tunnel and wait for us there. We're less than ten minutes out."_

"Right." She snapped the communicator closed, already familiar with the route they would take. Turning to Magnum, she said, "You heard the bird. Time to be heroes."

"Good," he grunted, and pushed off the wall. "All this bonding is making me twitchy."

* * *

The soothing, steady cranking of his ratchet helped sooth Techmann's frazzled patience while his employer's latest irritating interruption droned on over the communications terminal in the corner. Bad enough he was forced to endure the pitiful children and their frightened mewling, to say nothing of the cybernetic street urchin and the Stone whelp. He hadn't gags enough for them all, and sedation might interfere with the neuro-cyberneticism process. But his sponsor's scolding tones were almost more than the poor scientist could bear. "I refuse to alter my timetable," Techmann muttered, confident that the microphone implanted in his throat would carry his voice. "I cannot deliver what you request with these continued interruptions." 

_"You misunderstand,"_ the voice replied. _"The project is over. Terminated. You will find final payment waiting for you in your offshore account. I thank you for your services, Doctor. You are dismissed."_

Right before Cyborg's eyes, Doctor Walter Techmann displayed a greater volume of surprise than anyone before had ever witnessed in the stoic scientist. He paused and set his ratchet aside, and looked up at the disembodied voice. "This is unacceptable. I refuse to be dismissed in the middle of a project. Unacceptable."

_"The matter is not open to discussion. My apprentice has orders to assist you in the site's liquidation. All materials are expendable."_

"You will not call upon my services again," Techmann said. "This is unacceptable."

_"Be advised, Doctor; the Titans are on their way. And they are not alone."_

The comm channel clicked shut, ending the exchange and silencing Techmann's monotone tirade. "Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable."

"Yeah," Cyborg sighed from his wall mounts, "That was downright rude."

"The sheer audacity," Techmann continued, cradling his favorite ratchet and missing the sarcasm in Cyborg's voice. "That he could discard me as one would a common servant."

"He just doesn't understand how talented you are," Cyborg agreed.

Techmann approached his wall of prisoners, still stepping in a slow shuffle against the cement. "My work here is truly visionary. Can he not see that?"

Their captor was so close now, Cyborg could have reached out and squeezed the ageing man's head until it popped off like a grape, if only his superhuman strength was still online. Too bad for Cyborg that Techmann's actual talent almost matched the skills the old man boasted. Cyborg's power levels were still capped out at a fraction of their total potential, leaving him as weak as any normal human. So far, all of his attempts to bypass the power block had been blocked. "Well," Cyborg said, "There's a bright side to everything."

"Fascinating." Techmann's head tilted to the side. "And pray tell, what silver lining have you discovered in this particular metaphorical cloud?"

"Easy." A dark smile crossed Cyborg's lips as Techmann leaned in. With a low voice, he revealed, "After I get out of here, you'll be too busy under my big metal foot to worry about whatever insult he adds to the injury I give you."

The scientist sniffed. "Really, Victor. Your parents, though lesser intellects than myself, were nevertheless brilliant individuals. With their combined genetics, I might have expected better than a muscle-bound, blustery jock." That last word slipped through his teeth with a great deal of bitterness. If possible, his already sour face scrunched up even further.

Techmann's disappointment burned within Cyborg, especially if his mother was being brought into this. "You shut your wrinkly lips about my parents, or so help me—"

"And really," he continued, "Who altered my designs? I could barely navigate the circuitry layout. It appears you've allowed some form of inept primate to rewire your cybernetics."

Before Cyborg could return the verbal volley, Stripwire piped in from the side, "Request: Would you elaborate upon the previous relationship I have discerned you both to have shared at an indeterminate prior date?"

"Like doing hard time in a thesaurus," grumbled Cyborg.

However, Techmann seemed enamored by Stripwire's intervention. The younger champion had remained largely silent in Techmann's presence until that moment. "An eloquent and well-thought question," acknowledged Techmann. "To answer properly, I think, would take longer than we have time remaining." He glanced back at Cyborg, and then said, "Perhaps our Cro-Magnon associate could condense the tale into semi-intelligible grunts for us."

Cyborg chose to ignore the dig, and answered for Stripwire's benefit. "Doctor Smith here headed up the research team back at S.T.A.R. Labs in Metropolis. Among other things, like helping my parents' Trans-Dimensional Portal project, he focused on creating bionic replacements for victims of disease and accidents."

"One of my finer early works," beamed Techmann.

"Until they canned him for being a total fruitcake," Cyborg continued. "The branch manager found out his bionic project was a front for weapon implants and hardware to be sold to the highest bidder. After that, no legitimate lab would go near him." He finished with a satisfied smirk, "Which explains the fancy digs."

"A temporary measure, I assure you," sniffed Techmann. He seemed to lose interest in Cyborg, and instead set about examining the row of children next to the two teens. Gnarled fingers poked and prodded at their filthy scalps. Whatever buried treasure he sought beneath their matted hair apparently was not forthcoming, as he continued from one to the next. Always, his bony hands pressed into the child's skull at very precise points. His bespectacled gaze remained distant, far from the fearful faces of his prisoners. "Really, Victor," he said, pausing a moment in his administrations to cluck his tongue, "I would expect more courtesy from you toward the man to whom you owe your continued, vastly improved existence."

Cyborg scowled. "Your prototypes turned me into a living weapon. I had to take out half of the weapon systems before I could even sleep at night. Kept waking up, wondering if I would blow up the lab if I sneezed. Besides," he added, "After what you did to those kids, I don't owe you anything but a twenty ounce bottle of ass-whup."

"Please." Techmann rolled his eyes. One of Sanctuary's bolder residents, a bright boy named Eli, snapped his teeth at Techmann's probing hand. The scientist coiled his arm and struck the boy soundly on the cheek. Eli's face grew red, and his eyes shone with humiliated tears, but his baleful glare remained squarely on Techmann's hooked nose. "Do not bore me with the tired ideal of 'protecting the sanctity of life' you and your self-appointed _heroic_ ilk bandy about. It is your excuse for utilizing identical tactics as those your enemies employ, nothing more."

"Don't you touch him again," Cyborg snapped.

Techmann took hold of Eli's jaw, examining its underfed contours by touch. "Life, like every other physical attribute of this planet, is a resource. To sanctify life is a notion of equal absurdity to revering coal, or recognizing the rights and privileges of a tank of water. It is only the intangible qualities that remain worthwhile, a keen intellect being chief among them."

"I said let go of him!" roared Cyborg.

This open defiance was more than Techmann could stomach. Though imperfect for his purposes, the boy's cranium would suffice. Time was a factor he could no longer afford to neglect. And besides which, it would put that miserable Stone larva in its place. "You will do," Techmann informed Eli.

The stained folds of his lab coat rustled as he plumbed their depths and withdrew a small electric razor. The device hummed to life before Techmann applied it to the boy's scalp. Then it buzzed, chewing through the putrid waves of chestnut hair. Eli's scalp became shorn inside of a minute and, contrary to tradition, Techmann did not pause to admire his own handiwork. Instead, he made his way back to his expansive workbench and proceeded to sift through the mounds of equipment it held.

"My hair…" Eli whimpered.

Cyborg began to panic. Clearly, despite his mysterious employer's warnings, Techmann had no intention of discontinuing his work. His timetable had instead been moved up, it would seem. "What are you doing to him," he demanded.

"A cognitive processor is so very difficult to develop," lamented Techmann. His inherent disorganization provided Eli some sort of reprieve, one Cyborg hoped would be long enough to both figure out what was going on and put a stop to it. With a nod in Cyborg's direction, Techmann continued, "The very components that make up your CPU and interface took me thirteen months to develop. Scientists have labored for generations to create a computer with the ability to think, to create, and to learn." He tapped his own skull as his search and explanation continued, "But all too often, we forget that one has existed for thousands of years."

Realization found Cyborg, and hit him hard. He dismissed its epiphany at first, considering it to be too horrible for even Techmann's warped sense of ethics to consider. When Techmann produced a bowl-shaped device lined with thousands of needles, he knew his conclusions, no matter how gruesome, were right on the money. "No," he breathed.

"The human brain is an amazing piece of hardware," Techmann marveled. "Simply amazing." Those same damning shuffles once again carried him toward his captives. "When used at its maximum potential, it easily outshines anything yet produced artificially. The trick, I discovered, was properly reprogramming it to suit my purposes. But after a few unsuccessful attempts, I reached the solution. You saw how well my second prototype fought."

Stripwire remained impassive, having arrived at the same conclusion as Cyborg. While the Titan struggled against his bonds, the Streetbeat considered their options carefully. Part of him wished to join Cyborg in the fruitless fight against the unyielding steel, but he knew it would only be energy wasted. "You can't!" Cyborg shouted, echoing a sentiment Stripwire desperately wished was true. "I won't let you!"

"Of course, the question of what to do with the brain was something of a puzzle." His objective before him, Techmann began manipulating a set of controls on the exterior of the helmet. "Were I to remove it from the skull, what would keep it alive? And then it occurred to me; it already has an adequate life support system that needed only a steady supply of nutrients and oxygen. Why rock the boat, eh?"

"You," Stripwire informed him, "Are a monster."

The comment passed Techmann without effect. "I was lucky to find a ready source of test subjects," he said. "And with two prototypes and the remaining drones to defend me, I anticipate no problems with your would-be rescuers." He lifted the helmet, oblivious to its undulating needles and the shriek of fear they drew from Eli. "Now, to prepare Prototype Three's CPU. Hold still," he told Eli.

Cyborg pulled against the restraints with all his might. His underpowered systems lacked the oomph necessary to rip them from the wall, and they told him as much, but Cyborg wasn't satisfied with that. "No," he grunted. His armored chest heaved to no effect.

"Really, Victor," Techmann sighed again and paused, "You only embarrass yourself."

His power flow still balked at Techmann's bypasses and blocks, but still Cyborg fought. "No," he growled. His effort doubled and then doubled again, only to triple itself after that. Warnings began flashing in his eyes and howling in his ears, and still he fought. The smell of burning rubber curled from his mechanical joints, and still he fought. Subsystems melted, muscles (artificial and not) screamed, and still, Cyborg fought.

A sprinkling of concrete trickled from Cyborg's bonds. "Victor," Techmann said, no longer amused, "I order you to stop. Before you damage yourself."

"No," snarled Cyborg. His vision faltered. Relays blew themselves out.

"Stop," commanded Techmann. He stumbled back, forgetting all about his precious project. "Stop this instant, Victor. Your efforts are futile."

Cyborg roared, "Booyah!" as the bands of metal flew from the wall in an explosion of moldy cement shards. He fell to the floor, powered up and bristling with eight different varieties of mad. "Now," he rumbled, "Where were we?"

Trembling, Doctor Techmann somehow managed to keep his voice calm and imperial. "Young man, you are a fool if you believe yourself to be free and in possession of the upper hand. I offer you this one chance to submit to new power blocks and incarceration. Your only other choice is destruction."

Cyborg answered by reaching out and taking the needle helmet. Its durable alloys compacted beneath his overwhelming force into a lump of scrap the size of a baseball. He returned the knuckle-printed ball to Techmann's shaking hands with a grim smile. Then he brushed his own hands clean before reaching back and yanking off Stripwire's bonds one by one, without looking. Sanctuary's kids cheered together as their heroes squared off against the ageing, frail scientist.

"A poor choice." Techmann straightened. "Drones: Online."

Previously unseen alcoves appeared in the ceiling, and two dozen of the skeletal mechanoids dropped down into the room. They clanked onto the floor in unison, and surrounded the cybernetic teens in a second. Metal scraped as they circled, swiping and glaring, bathing their prey in red reflected from their glowing ocular sockets. The reinforcements restored Techmann's confidence, and with it, his composure. He watched both teens back up against each other and glare at the circling, deadly perimeter. "So, what do you have to say now?"

A disk of red and gold blurred onto the scene. It slammed into a robot's oversized skull, quivering, its shape revealed as that of a stylized bird with scythe-like wings and a blinking head. The robot pulled at the bird, its hydraulics squealing in fevered effort, but the wing of the bird reached too deep to be budged. The bird trilled a sharp warning, and then burst into a ball of conflagration that consumed its unwilling perch. Its head now scattered around the room, the robot's remaining portions slumped onto the floor, no longer any use to itself or its master.

Techmann and his prisoners traced the projectile back to its origins in the direction of the lab's murky entrance. There, ten teenagers, five dressed garishly, the other five in rags, stood in a single line that blocked any escape. Jason stood next to Robin in the center, his sword rested casually against his shoulder. "That was well said," he said.

"Thanks," Robin quipped back, already surveying the situation. "Raven, get those kids free and out of here."

Jason piped in, "Blink, give her a hand with that." A twisted smile sprouted on his face. "Everyone else, capture and property damage."

Normally Robin would have hesitated on that last point. Batman always preached about preservation of evidence. But considering the circumstances, he didn't think he could hold either team's need for some kind of retribution back, even if he wanted to. "You heard him. Titans," he started his trademark battle cry, but Jason's sword blocked his charge.

"Would you mind?" asked Jason. Robin gave him a puzzled look, to which he replied, "I like the way it sounds."

Robin smiled and nodded. "Be my guest."

Taking a deep breath, Jason shouted, "Streetbeat, GO!" and led his team on a charge into the room. The Titans paused only a moment before following them in. In the space of one shout, Techmann's prized lab became a seething pot of flying fists and energies. Techmann's robots fought with new enthusiasm, no longer having five times their number to fall back on. So too did the Titans and the Streetbeat bring their A-Game.

Lasers curdled the concrete walls above the bonded children, eliciting a chorus of terrified shrieks from them. The crimson beams of death swept closer, and would have split their bellies open if not for a translucent wall of ebony pulled from nothingness to block them from danger. A portion of the wall darkened into impenetrable black before disgorging one pissed-off Titan cloaked in blue.

"Just relax," Raven said unconvincingly. The children's shackles shimmered in the thrall of her soul-self, then split apart. They fell to the floor, ducking beneath a fresh set of lasers careening into Raven's barrier, not quite trusting that they were safe. "You'll be out of here soon."

In a flash of light, Blink dropped onto the scene. A quick headcount brought relief to their part of the plan. "That's all of them." He gathered a pair of five-year-olds up in his arms, looking over their shoulders. "Where are we going?"

"What's straight up?"

He thought for a moment, then ducked as Magnum tele-hurled a flaming robot carcass into Raven's shield. "Can't be any worse than this."

"Agreed." She double-checked their coordinates on her communicator. "Twenty meters straight up. Can you make it?"

Blink hesitated. "I might end up in a wall."

The bubble around them closed in, growing pitch dark. Raven's eyes shone as her tiny haven slipped through the cracks in reality. "Then let me do the driving," she murmured between incantations.

Jason watched the sphere of black shrink down into nothing as he pulled his broadsword out of a robot's torso. The thought of a demonic stranger popping his kids through some freaky portal didn't sit well with him, but he decided, at least consciously, that it was time to get over himself, if only for the time being.

Right before his eyes, he watched Starfire pull a skeleton's claws from Queenie's throat and then lift that very mechanoid up into the air and rip it in half. The princess' eyes flashed green, melting its remains into slag. For her trouble, Starfire caught a pair of red lasers in the back and a face full of cement. The robot responsible for downing her didn't have time to capitalize on the solid hit. He was too busy choking down his own limb that Queenie forced into his ill-fit jaw. Once his head split under the pressure, Queenie helped Starfire to her feet. Scorched, flaking skin still tender from her brush with death the previous week didn't keep the Titan from returning Queenie's grateful smile.

Magnum emptied his rusted revolvers into a mechanoid, sending teched-out trick bullets into an expanding blossom of fire. The revolvers' chambers spun, useless, so he tossed them aside. A trio of bots spied his predicament and advanced on him as one. "Hey, Green Jeans," Magnum called to his closest ally.

The crocodile at Magnum's feet spat out a robot's foot and morphed back into humanoid form. "Huh?"

"What's that thing you and that metal fullback of yours do? Fastball special?"

"Oh," said Beast Boy, understanding. "You mean the Beast Boy Blitz. That's where—"

The robots were only a few steps away. "Less telling," he grunted, grasping Beast Boy by the shoulders and pointing him in the right direction, "More showing!"

Beast Boy morphed into an armadillo in time for Magnum's touch to rocket him into the robot's formation. His armadillo swelled into a rhinoceros, driving his horn into one robot and bowling the two at its side over. He crashed into Techmann's workbench, sending a hail of broken technology into the air. One piece sailed across the room and into waiting metal hands.

"Drop this?" Cyborg tossed his lucky catch to Stripwire's remaining arm.

Stripwire held his bric-a-brac appendage up to his empty shoulder. Snaking tentacles of technology burst from the joint and clamped into the arm's end, then drew the arm back into place. He took a moment to flex his rediscovered fingers before they slid back, allowing his forearm to clatter and grow into a powerful compression cannon. "Shall we?" Stripwire held his cannon up.

Cyborg slammed his sonic cannon into his younger friend's weapon in an impromptu toast. "Love to." Together, they paved a path of robotic innards across the lab's remains. The other teens formed up around them, and in a flurry of birdarangs and starbolts and electric blasts and sonic energy and compressed blasts of air, their nemeses' numbers dwindled to nothing.

Techmann stood ankle-deep in his handiwork. Even the unused prototypes now littered the floor. His work journal floated in shreds throughout the dusty, dim lit air. Several pieces stuck in his wispy white hair. But he didn't blink in the wake of ten angry glares. "This is not how I envisioned this would be."

"Picture this, shitface," Jason snarled. "You're about to be on the ass end of an ass kicking." His shoulders heaved with exhausted breath, but his eyes burned bright.

Robin shuffled to the front of the pack, spinning his staff. "Give up, and we'll take you to jail without any trouble."

"Personally," Magnum growled, "I hope he runs for it." He placed himself between Techmann and Stripwire.

The elderly foe harrumphed and adjusted his spectacles. "Children," he sighed. "So melodramatic." His wizen fingers snapped, signaling the floor in front of the combined super teens to yawn open. The vanishing floor forced Robin and his friends back lest they be swallowed up by the unyielding metal teeth of the huge hatch. The void beneath didn't remain, though. A platform rose from the black, carrying with it a large and very familiar bot. "Prototype Two," Techmann ordered, "Liquidate the intruders."

"Son of a bitch," grumbled Cyborg. "This guy hides robots like Beast Boy hides chew toys."

"Dude," Beast Boy whined and turned beet red beneath Terra's inquisitive gaze. "Not cool. I mean, uh, what're you—"

"Later," Robin snapped. "Titans, separate!" They were already dodging Gearface's thundering fist as the last syllable left his mouth. He rolled back and felt the wind and debris blast his hair back as the robot's fist grazed the very tip of his nose. Ever quick on the draw, Robin already had an explosive disc in his hand. He slapped the magnetic side against Gearface's blocky knuckles and then leapt back.

Gearface reeled as its hand crumpled beneath the shaped charge. The ruined manipulator fell away, and a pair of prongs slid from the empty wrist, arcing with blue-white electricity. Missile racks extended from its shoulders, and panels in its chest opened to reveal swiveling laser ports.

A beam of pure electricity zigzagged at Cyborg faster than he could dodge. If not for a blur of filthy rags jumping in front of him, every one of his restored systems would have fused together. Instead, Gearface's prongs fed Juice a steady stream of his own medicine.

"Mmm," Juice grinned, "Toasty. How about I return the favor?" With a grunt, he brought his hands together and forced a power blast into Gearface's fuselage. Though his own efforts set every cell in his arms ablaze, it was worth it to tear into Gearface. It would have been, except the electricity rolled right off of its armor and ricocheted into Queenie, Starfire, Beast Boy, and Jason, all of whom were lining up their own attacks. "Huh," cringed Juice, "That sucked."

Cyborg grabbed up Juice and swung around as Gearface launched a missile back at its attacker. Between the explosion slamming into his spine and the burst of feedback Juice unintentionally blasted into his systems, his poor implants had no choice but to isolate themselves and power down before his protectee killed him. When the dust cleared, Juice lay trapped under a quarter ton of metal and muscle, and four of their numbers were twitching spasmodically on the floor.

A shaft of blackened earth burst from the floor and lanced through the behemoth's knee. Immobilized, Gearface pivoted around to face a glowing-eyed Terra. Its swinging backhand slapped her aside before she could drive the dirt deeper. As she slammed against the wall, her spear dissolved back into clumps of soil. But the damage was done; Gearface fell to one knee, unable to rise.

"Now," Robin shouted, "While he's down!" All of Robin's Titans had fallen. Both Magnum and Stripwire were nowhere to be found, and the rest of the Streetbeat lay in shambles. Tossing aside his staff, Robin strafed to the side and grasped at another explosive.

Gearface would have none of it. The same hand that bore Robin's palm print from the battle at Sanctuary launched tentacles from its fingertips that wrapped around Robin and sent a stunning electrical jolt through his body. The Teen Wonder felt himself jerked forward and slammed into the robot's torso. As his brain rattled, he felt the tentacles release him and throw him to the floor. Dazed, aching, Robin looked up and saw Gearface reaching up for another deathblow.

This robot had kidnapped innocent children. It had taken Cyborg. His friends now lay at its feet by its hand, and the twisted intent of its creator. An innocent child's broken life fueled its evil, and no force could seem to stop it. How much more injustice did they have to suffer at this thing's hands? How many more lives would it take? Robin promised to protect the innocent. There was already too much blood on this thing's hands weighing on Robin's conscience. No more. No more.

"No more!" As Gearface struck down, Robin struck up. It never occurred to him as the three-inch-thick adamantine alloy buckled under his green gloves that such a thing couldn't happen. The impossibility of that fist the size of a small car disintegrating under his sloppy blow didn't even register. Fueled with righteous fury, filled with strange satisfaction, Robin burst through Gearface's fist with an enraged roar. Delicate machinery scattered every which way. Viscous hydraulic fluid poured over Robin. He snarled at Gearface as the mechanical leviathan snapped back, now down another hand. Then reality set back in. Both combatants stopped and stared at each other, each lost for an explanation of what had passed. By all rights, Robin should have been a smear, and they both knew it.

Before Robin could even wipe the goop from his eyes, Gearface's chest burst open, peppering Robin with more expensive shrapnel and fluids. The robot swayed drunkenly, then fell forward. Robin stepped back by reflex alone to avoid being crushed, though the quake sent through the floor at Gearface's impact did knock him off his feet. At that point, his surprise left him susceptible to a feather's kiss, much less such a terrified crash.

Standing atop the robotic corpse, Stripwire clutched at his sparking, limp mechanical arm. He saw Robin's incredulity and shrugged. "Compression cannon. Set to overload, it delivers a single, devastating blast at the cost of future use of my limb." Stripwire examined the robot's remains, lifting his goggles. The lenses of his artificial eyes glistened in the pale light as they considered his kill. "In this instance, I believe the appropriate phraseology amounts to, 'Booyah. '" He paused a second more before saying, "Booyah," again.

Jason pulled himself from the ground, his mouth tasting heavily of cotton and his muscles cramped from Juice's misfire. The last few minutes were a mystery to him. When he saw Stripwire and Robin standing in Gearface's remains, he flew into a panic. "No!" he howled, rushing forward. He scrabbled up the side of the robot, screaming, "No, you killed him! We have to save him, he might still be alive! Strip, we have to—"

A single arm wrapped around Jason's chest. Were Jason not so fatigued from fighting, Stripwire couldn't have hoped to overpower him, but it was his steady hand that kept the Streetbeat's leader from diving into Gearface's cratered torso. "Jason," he deadpanned, "He's dead."

"No," sobbed Jason, struggling against Stripwire's grip. "No. He can't be."

"He's dead, Jason." Stripwire held Jason as the older boy collapsed in his arms. "He died before we ever got here. There was nothing we could do for them. They are all dead."

Jason's sobs died in short, heaving breaths. He climbed up Stripwire's rigid frame with iron fingers, rising back to his feet. "Where is he," he growled, glaring with reddened eyes. "Where is that son of a—"

A gunshot roared through the tiny space, freezing Jason in his tracks as white-hot pain lanced through his leg. He fell back to his knees, only to be kicked away by a small shoe to the face. Stripwire felt a burning barrel end jam against the base of his skull. "No speeches," Techmann's dull voice hissed. "No heroics. Just death. That you, you," he struggled to spit the words out with sufficient disgust, "You children should force me to such crude methods of defending myself, that you would Disrupt. My. Work. Now you will die."

The hammer of the gun pulled back. Stripwire wondered what death would be like. Of all the sensations he had imagined death to hold, a warm splattering of someone else's blood on the back of his head, or an old man's warbling shriek right behind him, had never been among them. He turned around to stare at Techmann's bloodied stump, which the scientist clutched at as he moaned piteously.

Magnum dropped the rest of the razor-edged shrapnel clutched in his hands. "You stay the hell away from him, you son of a bitch," he heaved. "You stay the hell away from my…" The blank look on Stripwire's face stopped him in mid-platitude, taking the wind from his sails.

The rest of the teens began to stir at Techmann's wails. Bruised, battered, they pulled themselves from the rubble. Robin's composure returned. He mustered his Gotham Growl, regardless of the thick gunk covered him from head to toe, and approached their foe. "Whoever you are," he uttered exhaustedly, "You're under arrest. We'll read you your rights after we get out of this hellhole."

All the slings and arrows the combined teams had suffered were not enough to satisfy fate. The ground they stood upon began to shake, first gently, then not so much. Titan and Streetbeat alike stumbled about, trying to keep their footage. It felt as though their whole world was had become a rattle for an infantile, oblivious godling.

Robin slammed into a wall, clinging as best he could to its grimy surface. "Terra!" he cried, not in accusation, but as a request for some kind of help.

The ground stabilized locally beneath Terra's feet as she stood in silent inquiry with her mother earth. "It's not natural," she called back. "It's some kind of artificial quake, only extends a few blocks in all directions. But this place is coming down!"

With Starfire's help, Queenie rolled the insensate Cyborg off of Juice and gathered both boys up. "Can you stop it?" Queenie asked through an armload of metal man.

Scowling, Terra concentrated on the crumbling room. "No," she said, struggling against invisible forces. "It's too wild, too many fluctuations. I can buy us maybe a minute before this place comes down."

Just as everyone was ready to panic, a light pulsed in the center of the room, bringing with it the only absent Streetbeat. "What the hell is going on here?" Blink shouted above the rolling rock all around them. "The whole area's going berserk up top. What did—"

"Shut up, Blink," roared Jason. With Stripwire's help, he hobbled up and across the room. The rest of the teens followed, clutching wounds or carrying the wounded, as was the case with the girls. Terra still fought against the tremors, but she wasn't forgotten, and made it to the gathering thanks to Magnum's rough grip. They surrounded Blink, who twitched under such focused attention. "Get us out of here."

"Are you shitting me?" Blink croaked. Pieces of ceiling rained down on them, and water began splattering everywhere from broken pipes above while their teleporter whined. "I can't take you all. Maybe if I did it in trips…"

Terra moaned and clutched her head. "Maybe half a minute…"

"Dude," Beast Boy said, "Get us out of here!"

"Cyborg is not breathing," Starfire panicked. "Does he not need to breathe? How do I induce the breathing within him?"

Techmann's furious howl rose above the torrential roar of the earth tearing itself apart. "This is not over, insects! You will all pay for this indignity!"

"I can't hold it," whimpered Terra.

"We're gonna die here," said Queenie.

"You can't ask me to do this," Blink insisted. "I can't do it, there're too many for one trip."

"He is not breathing!" Starfire wailed.

"We must evacuate," observed Stripwire.

"Everyone," Jason bellowed, "Shut **UP**!" He grasped Blink's shoulder and forced their gazes together. "Blink, you gotta do this. You're our only hope. You duck out now, we all die."

"Time to be a hero, Blink," Robin added.

Blink considered this for a moment. Crying out, Terra fell into Beast Boy's waiting arms, spent. The shaking grew worse. A wall buckled and fell on the far side of the lab, letting a slew of crushed cement and dirt to tumble in. "Okay," he said, "Everybody grab on." The Teen Titans and the Streetbeat piled their hands atop his, gathered in a circle as one force. Rancid, dusty sewer breath whistled in and out of Blink's lungs as he prepared for the massive 'port. "Here goes everything."

In their last moments before the world turned into pure light, Jason looked back at the enemy whose name he didn't even know. Techmann stood in the ruins of his once proud lab, grasping the bleeding stub at the end of his arm and glaring at those who had ruined his magnificent works. "See you in hell," the Streetbeat leader slurred through the pain of his gunshot wound. The rest was silence.

* * *

The children clung to her cloak, huddled around Raven as the empty eyesore of a building they had 'ported into rolled and bucked. Forgotten was her discomfort of the proximity the children forced upon her in their fear. She kept them safe from the debris dislodged in the earthquake with an umbrella of black power, and prayed that wherever Blink had disappeared to, he would return with good news. 

Even as she wished it, the air split open and vomited up eleven different bodies a meter or so off the ground. They landed in a screaming, writhing mass of arms and legs. Raven spotted her teammates among the living ball, and felt relieved for a split second, until a chunk of plaster kicked up a blinding cloud of dust.

Ever one to keep a choke hold on the situation, Robin began shouting orders that none of them were in any shape to follow. "Terra, get the area stabilized. Raven, put a shield up around everyone. Starfire, you and Juice get ready to punch a hole—"

It took Robin an extra two seconds to realize that the quake had stopped before he stopped shooting his mouth off. Everyone froze for a moment, afraid that excessive movement or talking would somehow invite the shaking to return. Slowly, gently, they disentangled from each other and stood. Jason still leaned heavily on Stripwire, and used his blade as a crutch for his bad leg. He forced his way over to Raven's bunch, calling out to the kids. "Eli, Sharika, Julian, Bobby…is everyone okay?"

The children seemed shell shocked, but none were hurt. The littlest one, a four-year-old boy, burst into tears and ran into Jason's waiting embrace. He sobbed into Jason's shirt, clutching at the folds of his jacket. "I wanna go home," he wept.

Jason shushed gently, ignoring the throbbing pain in his leg. "S'okay," he whispered. "We'll be back at Sanctuary in no time."

"No," the boy sobbed, "I wanna go home. I don't wanna be runned away no more. I wanna go home," he insisted over and over again.

The room grew deathly quiet, save for the child's anguished crying. No matter how hard he tried to avoid it, Jason couldn't escape the pointed glance Robin gave him. "Shh," Jason murmured, "Don't cry. We'll get you home."

* * *

ONE WEEK LATER 

Sunlight bathed the grassy, rolling hills in a cheerful glow reflected in nearly all the hearts of those who strolled through Jump Park. Its manicured fields and crystal clear pond portrayed a picturesque city devoid of crime, and hate, and cruelty, and all the other things that six very special teenagers dealt with every day. They flanked a park bench situated near the duck pond, an honor guard for an impatient woman in a dark business skirt and jacket.

The businesswoman checked her watch once more with an impatient breath. The summer heat made her antsy, even after she removed her heavy jacket, no longer caring of the sweat stains in her blouse. "They're late," she huffed.

Cyborg readjusted the weighty satchel on his shoulder. His chronometer flashed on the display panel on his arm, confirming what she said. "They'll be here," he said. "Don't worry."

A sweet, tender breeze rustled through Robin's stiff hair and lifted the edges of his cape. His masked eyes were downcast, staring at his own hands a million miles away. The dark green fingers flexed independently of his numbed mind. In a few hours, he would have the chance to test the power they held In the meantime, a large herd of people cresting a nearby hill brought his thoughts back to the task at hand.

Jason took the lead of his flock, carrying a three-year-old girl in one arm and holding the hand of her older brother. The limp in his left side was slight, a testimony to his resilience. His Streetbeat likewise kept watch over the children on their stroll through the park, keeping the group knit tight to avoid anyone being left behind. Their leader shifted a set of suspicious eyes about the unfamiliar terrain, flickering across the Titans and their new acquaintance. Distrust shone brighter than the sun in his unpleasant face, undisguised, unapologetic.

Each child blinked heavily against the daylight. Their faces gleamed, freshly scrubbed, and their clothes held none of the dirt they usually did. Still underfed, they nevertheless seemed energized by their surroundings, jittery with excitement. The Titans could tell that Sanctuary's tenants were putting their best feet forward on this outing.

At their approach, the businesswoman rose from her seat and set aside her briefcase. She smoothed the folds of her skirt and donned her best smile. "Hello," she said, "My name is Gloria. Gloria Xang. I'm with Social Services."

"Jason Hawke." Jason shook her hand begrudgingly. The glare on his face lingered, creasing his brows.

"Nice to meet you," caramelized Gloria. "You're quite the strapping lad, I must say."

"Skip it." He pulled his hand away with a grunt. "I'm not the one you have to sell this to." He turned and knelt down, gathering the children together. The focus they gave him spoke a great deal of the respect and admiration they held for him. "Guys, I want you to listen to Ms. Xang. She wants to take you away from Sanctuary and find homes for you."

One of the little girls clung viselike to Queenie's leg and whimpered. "No," she said. "I won't go back. You can't make me!"

"No, no, sweetie," cooed Gloria, "No. Jason's friends told me all about you. I just want to meet with you, and talk to you guys. Find out about you. And yes," she admitted, "I'd like to find families for you. It's what I do for kids just like you. Families and homes where you'll be safe, and loved, and happy."

The Streetbeat backed away, allowing Gloria free access to the kids. No matter their personal feelings on the matter, they had to admit her skills with Sanctuary's kids were considerable. She joked with them, laughed with them, and never talked down to any of them. The children gathered around, giving her the same attention they gave Jason, as she described to them the system that would eventually place them in foster homes or, if they wanted, put them up to be adopted.

Jason stood by Robin, watching the exchange with a look of sour grapes. The satisfied smile on his counterpart's face pushed yet another of Jason's buttons. "They won't go with her, you know," he grumbled under his breath.

"Some of them will," Robin countered. A collective giggle from the children strengthened his case. "But it's okay to be unhappy about it."

Further off to the side, Raven pushed back her hood and lifted her face into the warm sun. It wasn't often she allowed herself into direct sunlight. The demon half in her didn't like the light. She was half human too, though, and it was nice to indulge that part of her nature once in a while, especially on such a beautiful day. As the sun and the breeze caressed her pale, delicate features, she felt a ball of anxiety approaching from behind to ruin the peaceful moment.

The irritated shift in her stance only made Juice more nervous. His hand rose to the dark mouth of his hood as he cleared his throat. "Hey, Raven," he said.

"Juice." She examined his long cloak with a raised brow. "Why are you still wearing those?"

"Huh? Oh." Juice pulled sheepishly at his robes, shucking them to reveal a gleaming, skintight black suit lined with copper trim. A wraparound hood covered everything but his face, where a pair of electric blue irises stared out from whites no longer obscured with excess electricity. "Just so used to wearing them, it feels…dangerous to go without them." He tucked the old robes beneath his arm, feeling the coarse material brushing against his bare hands.

Raven reached out and brushed the uncovered flesh on the back of his hand. His eyes went wide, and a sharp breath whistled through his clenched teeth, but she did not pull back with a yelp of pain he had come to expect from contact in his life. "Seems like the bioelectric containment suit is working. It doesn't hurt to use your powers?"

A Jacob's Ladder danced between two of his fingers, which he held up with a cheesy grin. "For the first time ever. And it's all thanks to you."

She shrugged. "All I did was suggest that S.T.A.R. Labs could help. They were the ones who fitted you for that suit. Eventually," she added, "They may work out a set of containment implants that eliminate the need for the suit altogether."

"I can wait," he said. "Besides, the suit lets me at least give you a proper thank you." Before Raven could escape, he leaned forward and pressed his lips briefly to her cheek. Cool, tingling static danced on her reddening cheeks. She yanked her hood back up and turned away to cover the blush in her face.

A ways from Raven's embarrassment, Cyborg slid in next to Stripwire. "How's the arm?"

The mechanical limb in question twitched. "Still touchy. The last blast that defeated Techmann's prototype overloaded several components, and I have yet to find or fabricate suitable replacements."

"I was hoping you'd say that." Cyborg dug through his large satchel and, with a small grunt of success, pulled out a brand new appendage. The silvery arm lacked Cyborg's trademark blue circuitry pattern. Instead, its alloy was uniform, save for the bold, embossed Streetbeat 'S' running up and down the forearm. "And it's just your size," crowed Cyborg.

For once, Stripwire couldn't think of anything to say. He took the arm, feeling its heft. His organic fingers traced the lines of the Streetbeat insignia with pensive awe for the gift. "Thank you…this is truly auspicious."

"No big deal," grinned Cyborg. "I amped up the power on the compression cannon, and even managed to add a few new features on top of your Omnitool equipment."

Some of his cool composure returned. "I look forward to making improvements on your improvements."

Cyborg's grin broadened as he encircled Stripwire's diminutive frame with one arm. "Let's talk shop," he said.

"Not before you give him our other surprise," interjected Robin. He pulled Jason away from the children, who came reluctantly, and motioned for Cyborg to continue. The largest Titan pulled a box of polished walnut wood from the bag as his leader continued, "We've been talking about it, and—"

"You can stop right there," snorted Jason. "We don't want to be honorary Titans, if it's all the same to you."

"We didn't figure you would." Robin nodded, and Cyborg opened the case. Inside, six circular devices with black rubber antennae waited. The Streetbeat 'S' glistened on the cover of each one, a sliver letter set on gunmetal casing. Jason took one from the fitted foam lining of the box and turned it over in his hands, marveling at the smooth lines of its exterior as Robin explained, "They're communicators. Much better than runners, and they'll let you contact us if you're ever in trouble. And we can call you before we come over."

Jason blinked. "Come over?"

"We secured some private funding for you." Robin's face became a mask of modesty. "Sanctuary can't exactly be sanctioned by the government, but some well-to-do citizens are impressed with what you've done. Assuming you start working with Social Services, and not outside them, they're content to let you round up runaways and help them to a better life."

Excitement forced Cyborg to break into Robin's spiel. "We've got it all," he said. "Money, equipment, sundries, the works. Dude named Bruce Wayne seemed real eager to help us out." The last comment didn't draw so much as a blink from Robin. "He's got some serious bank ready to roll out for you guys."

"And the Titans will stop by every now and again," added Robin. "We'll set up a schedule or something that isn't too intrusive. Cy's got some ideas for a defensive grid, and the rest of us can lend a hand in getting the place back up to Code." Jason's jaw flapped open and closed, so Robin just clapped him on the shoulder. "The Titans want to help."

Jason could only stand in shock at their generosity. "I…I don't know what to say," he admitted.

Stripwire took one of the communicators and began examining its construction. Doubtless he was already conceiving new ways to increase its power. "I believe the appropriate response is 'thank you, '" he said from the corner of his mouth.

"Thank you," echoed Jason. He seemed torn, as if the good fortune wasn't exactly so good. "I just…" He looked back with a longing expression at his kids, who laughed and giggled with the woman who would take them away from him. "There'll always be kids on the run. Sanctuary'll always be there for them. But if we're sending them off to real homes, that'll leave my crew with a lot of extra time. To tell you the truth," he sighed, "I feel a little lost."

"You could always try the superhero trade," Robin chuckled. "I hear it's a major growth industry. There's always room for another team." Just then, his own communicator began demanding Robin's attention with a nine-toned musical number. He glanced at the device and pressed a button, smothering its flashing light and song. "You think about it," he said, "I have to go. Cyborg and the others will stick around until you're done here. Call us to set up a meeting time, and we'll start upgrading Sanctuary as soon as possible."

Robin left them in a swirl of cape, only to have Jason scramble after him. "Wait, where are you going?" Starfire had already noticed Robin's retreat, and was giving Queenie a hasty, bone-shattering hug before zipping through the air after him. "You're just going to leave?"

"Can't be helped," Robin apologized with a shrug. "I have a doctor's appointment." One last wave started him back down the path, where Starfire joined him from the air and walked alongside him, starting some conversation that apparently upset the Tamaranian.

Jason slowed to a halt, watching them go. He felt pulled apart by all the conflicting emotions hammering their way through his heart at the moment, and Robin's innocent idea had unfortunately added to that pressure. "Super heroes?" The words rolled around in his mouth, leaving a taste that he couldn't say he found unpleasant. His cybernetic companions approached him as he mulled the words again. "Super heroes."

"Always enough big bads in Jump City to go around," Cyborg noted. With a sly look, he added, "There's just one problem."

Both Streetbeat teens looked up in unison and harmonized, "There is?"

One by one, their numbers were ticked off on Cyborg's metallic fingers. "Queenie, Magnum, Juice, Blink, Stripwire and…Jason?" That sixth finger wagged a negative in Jason's face. "C'mon, man. You'll need a better handle than that if you want to survive in the business."

Cyborg had seen Jason in many different states of anger and agitation, but before that moment, he hadn't seen the Streetbeat embarrassed. "Well," coughed Jason, "There was this one name the guys came up with…but I put a quick stop to it."

"And that was…?"

Stripwire answered for him, tapping the hilt of the blade strapped to Jason's back. "Saber," he said. Those who knew Stripwire well enough could read the subtle amusement on his features as Jason squirmed.

"It doesn't even make sense," Jason repeated an old argument. "This thing's a broadsword."

"Saber." The name rolled past Cyborg's smirk. "Y'know," he said, squinting at Jason in careful consideration, "With the right attitude, and the right costume, you just might pull it off."

"Really?"

"No."

* * *

Beeping, swooshing, pumping, and bubbling. All of the noises Robin associated with doctors and their lairs. But aside from the gentle kiss of a thrumming air conditioner vent, the office was just as quiet as his visit a week ago. Katherine Brown's office was immaculate and smelled of disinfectants. Lucky for Robin, Starfire hovered over him (not literally, thank goodness, but he was sure any more fretting on her part would set her airborne), and her lilac aroma eased his own anxiety. 

His hand ran across the front of his uniform, pressing into the spot where his unwanted passenger had burrowed in. The lump had vanished over the week as his little friend pushed deeper into his body. Brown's new battery of tests revealed it to be just behind his ribcage now, nestled comfortably up against his stomach. A feeling of utter contentment drifted through his thoughts, separate from his own anxiety. _Those nerve connections_, Robin recalled. _I can feel this thing's emotions. Can it feel mine? Can it read my thoughts?_

"Robin?" Starfire watched him rub at his ribs with a faraway look, and she cursed her inability to help him. She reached for him, then hesitated and pulled away. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know," Robin said. He looked down at his own hands, which held power beyond anything in his experience. Alloys that should have crushed him had instead yielded at his touch. It could only be the alien in him. His Wheaties, though a tasty source of fiber, couldn't possibly be responsible for that kind of boost. "A week ago, I thought I was fine. Now…I guess I'm not. Or maybe I'm better. Who knows what this thing is doing to me?" The invasive camera, the bane of his day not that long ago, drew a smile out of him from its perch across the room. "Vic and I were in here, joking and laughing like everything was okay."

"Perhaps…" Starfire's eyes dipped. "Perhaps you would feel better if he were with you during this examination as well. You would prefer his company to mine."

Guilt swamped Robin, turning him into a clod of a marsh. "What? Starfire, is that what you think?"

"It is an alien that is infesting you now," continued Starfire. She actually seemed ashamed, as if she had failed him somehow. "I am an alien," she reminded him.

Robin caught her arm before she could float away. He forced himself to grasp gently, lest this freakish strength in his body crush her. "Kory, that's insane. This isn't about you, or what planet you're from. I just…" Now he seemed ashamed. "I didn't want you to worry." She gave him a confused look, forcing him to explain further. It took real effort to keep the embarrassment from his face. "I was afraid you would worry about me if you had to wait here through all these tests."

Starfire's beautiful smile returned. Her eyes softened with understanding as she took his hand in hers. "You are a silly little bungorf for having such thoughts."

"I don't suppose that's Tamaranian for 'Great Warrior', is it?"

"I worry about you no matter where I am," she informed him. Her thumb traced a slow circle around the top of his glove as she stared into his mask. "And you know this, I am sure. But it is all right. I will not force you to admit that you do not like to be seen at your most vulnerable."

Robin flushed all over at the intimate tone in her voice. "That's nice of you," he gulped.

The door to the office opened and jerked the teenagers apart with the entrance of one Doctor Katherine Brown, who carried with her that ever-present clipboard of hers, but went without her usual look of curious bemusement. Instead, she seemed concerned, and exemplified as much when she paused inside the door. Robin had to wonder if she was afraid to get any closer to him, and he couldn't really blame her. "So," he asked.

Brown flipped through her notes and test results as if she hadn't spent the last fifteen minutes triple-checking them, which she had. "I could bore you with the details. Would you like me to bore you with the details?" Her stall tactic met with silence, much to her disappointment. "All right. Bottom line: Either I'm a total incompetent, or this space tick of yours is one tricky bug. And," she added, "Since the former is impossible, we can only assume the latter is true."

Games didn't sit well with Starfire when her Robin's life was on the line. "Please," she pleaded impatiently, "What is happening to Robin?"

Brown sighed and paged through the report to look at a chemical analysis. "A week ago, I didn't detect anything wrong with Robin because I was too busy focusing on the creature's anatomy and the way it interacted with his macrobiology. There were no changes, other than the nerve clusters that made removing it dangerous, and the nutrient drain on his system."

"But that's different now." Robin clutched at his chest. "It's changing me."

"You're damn right it's different," scoffed Brown. "The problem is that the changes were happening a week ago, but on a cellular level." She brought up a diagram of something that looked like a sickly amoeba gorged on a preschool's worth of shapes. It didn't mean much to either Titan, but Brown obviously thought it vital to her explanation. "This is one of your skin cells. You might recall the jackhammer we used to get it from you."

Robin rubbed his arm. "Do I."

"When you shoot Superman with a gun," Brown proposed, "What happens?"

"Um…" hummed Starfire, confused by the odd question.

"Absolutely nothing." Brown answered her own question. "Even his clothes stay spick and span, because each of his cells emits a biomagnetic aura that protects him from damn near everything."

"Are you saying I have this same invulnerability?"

She shrugged, a poor answer for a scientist to resort to. "Near as I can figure. We know so little about his powers, and so little about what's happening to you, the comparison really doesn't fit well. And as for your strength, well…" More pages flew by until she showed them another cell diagram. "Your muscle structure has changed, both microscopically and macroscopically. I'm still not sure how, but your strength is increasing. Rapidly. Continually. I'm not sure where it'll stop."

"He is still changing?" gasped Starfire. She began examining Robin herself, lifting his arm and looking over his frame.

Brown nodded. "It would seem that your new alien friend is no parasite after all."

"It's some kind of symbiote," murmured Robin. Once again, he stared down at his hands as if seeing them for the first time. Starfire's examination didn't even register with him through the mental mire of a million new questions. "I'm a metahumans."

"And getting more meta by the second," Brown agreed.

**END: SANCTUARY**

**NEXT: HONOR**

* * *

_Author's Afterward_

Wow. This has to be one of the most intense story arcs I've ever handled in any fandom. Every character has to have his or her moment to shine, and with twelve characters, there were a lot of moments. The long pause for finals and winter break didn't help either, but now that I'm back on track toward a regular update schedule, things will hopefully unravel a little faster. Now that the nature of Robin's friend has been revealed, there should be no more mystery left, right? Ha! Wrong. _Dead_ wrong.


	12. Honor: Bushido

_All-Purpose Disclaimer_

**Teen Titans** is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Cartoon Network Inc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit and purely for entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, not to be reproduced without prior consent. Additional information used in creating **Teen Titans: Avatar** courtesy of Titans Tower Online.

* * *

A specter skulked with skillful silence through the shadows of a madman's lair. Enormous gears lined the walls. Their rusted teeth jutted from the floor and loomed overhead, fitted to one another with perfect precision for no discernable purpose the specter could see. Chains hung like cobwebs, cluttering the large space and contributing to its overall mystique. Did the clockwork serve some higher function, or merely contribute to the owner's overall sense of dramatics? It was a question worth exploring, but at a later date. Business always came first. 

Light filtered through the dusty air from an opening up ahead, a void amidst the machinery. The clearing held but a single column of light illuminating a platform of equal radius. Raised a handful of centimeters from the floor, the platform itself was a simple affair: a single chair, surrounded by computer equipment pulled from the pages of a futuristic Heinlein thriller. Currently, the pedestal's occupant sat on his throne, engaged in a conversation with the empty space he surrounded himself with.

_"You should have told me what was down in that lab,"_ the thin air said in a shrill tone.

The illuminated figure steepled his fingers. His single eye narrowed behind a two-toned faceplate as he hunched forward. I tell you everything essential to your mission," he admonished her. "Nothing less, and certainly nothing more."

Taking great care, the specter crept to the edge of the clockwork. The disembodied voice, clearly feminine, didn't heed the tone of warning in her master's voice. _"He was murdering kids. He was building **your** robots out of orphans."_

"All of which is none of your concern." As his tone rose, so too did the figure stand from his seat. "You forget yourself, Apprentice. Do not presume to question me. I taught you better than that."

_"You didn't teach me to murder children!"_

Even an interloper like the specter could sense the magnitude of the voice's breach in their relationship. It was quite some time before the figure could speak again. He seated himself, crossed his legs, uncrossed his legs, resteepled his fingers, all the while considering the conversation at great length. "I gave you your life. I gave you control. And in return, you agreed to help me destroy those that had forsaken you. Are you now telling me you've lost your nerve? Have you forgotten your oath to me?"

His use of the guilt card ended the argument_. "No,"_ his apprentice sighed_. "You know I'm in for the Titans' destruction. I'll see this through to the end. But I didn't get into this to murder children."_

He could not deny the validity of her point. "I was not aware of Doctor Techmann's less conventional components. In retrospect, I cannot condone what he did."

Whatever distance separating her from this location could not hide her lack of satisfaction. _"I have to go. They're expecting me for a training drill."_

"Don't stray far," the figure instructed her. "Our next operation begins immediately. You know what to do."

_"I read the briefing. I'll be ready."_ She signed off with a curt click.

The illuminated figure leaned back in his seat and swung about. His back was turned to the specter as she drummed his fingers on his computer console. The rhythmic tapping of leather gloves against steel and plastic overwhelmed the silence that haunted his lair. "Of course," mused the figure, "The operation cannot begin whilst its key player insists on hiding in shadows."

His jig upended, the specter stood and approached the circle of light. Spillover brightness soaked into his spotless white robes. Black hair tumbled into his eyes as he bowed. "Most impressive, Mister Wilson. Few have ever discovered my presence without my acquiescence."

"Please," the man said, standing to greet his new arrival. "'Slade' will do for the purposes of our business."

Slade's single eye looked the young man up and down. It was as though he could read the robed figure's entire life through that cursory examination. The look sent an uncharacteristic chill down the young man's spine. As auras went, Slade's was the darkest he had ever encountered. Malevolence broiled in the air around his body, unseen to those not gifted with sight like his. The sheath at his hip, which contained his ancestors, whispered with a thousand voices in harmony of the atrocities from the dark man's past.

"I appreciate your Punctuality, Orsono-san," said Slade. He pushed aside the railing and exited the command platform.

The young man bowed again, listening with half an ear to his ancestors' telling of Slade's cruel history. "'Mister Orsono', if you don't mind. For the purposes of our business." His eyebrow quirked as he felt Slade smile, though he could not see the gesture. "And my punctuality is merely a gesture of respect toward such a generous employer."

Slade nodded appreciatively. "And are you prepared to complete your assignment?"

The question left a smile on the boy's lips. Slade possessed paper-thin diplomacy in presenting uncertainty in his abilities. But then, considering he had not yet reached his sixteenth birthday, part of him could understand the recurring distrust in some of his older employers. The teen guessed that, were he one of Slade's everyday henchmen like his unseen Apprentice, that diplomacy would never arise. Orsono then chose to accept the veiled insult as a compliment, and reached within his robes to prepare a demonstration. Slowly, so as not to upset Slade's watchful eye, he pulled a crisp, red apple from the folds of his gi and presented it for Slade's approval.

The irregular orb glinted in Slade's eye. "Charming," he sniffed. "If you're looking for a teacher to ingratiate yourself to, I believe the Hive Academy is accepting new enrollment."

The boy stifled a miniscule laugh and rested his other hand atop his ancestors. Through the cool metal wrapped in thin strips of leather, he heard them murmur their encouragement and approval with melodious hush that only he could hear. Emboldened by their words, he propelled the apple into the air and drew forth the might of his ancestors.

A storm of silver thundered inches from Slade's mask. The villain never blinked, but his trained eye could not quite catch up to Bushido's deadly strokes. His new hire stepped back, sheathing what Slade foolishly mistook for a mere weapon. Slade's inhuman reflexes guided his hand to snatch six slices of apple from the air. Each slice was the same size as the others, and cut clean. "Impressive," remarked Slade. "But you'll need more than party tricks for this mission."

"I have handled metahumans before," the boy assured him.

The eye narrowed. "These are no ordinary metahumans, my young associate. They possess incredible resourcefulness that thus far has proven to be the x-factor in my dealings with them. You have read the dossiers my Apprentice provided you?"

"I did." His hand gravitated back to his ancestors, folded across his waist in a gesture of deceitful relaxation. "I assure you, when you hired me, you recruited the finest. My honor demands nothing less." He adopted a look of severe gravity. "And the Teen Titans will soon discover that Bushido's finest will be their undoing."

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Honor**: _Bushido_

Back and forth. Back and forth. Stop for a few seconds to sniff the rapidly-expanding sweat stains beneath his arms. Back and forth again. Go over his lines again, wondering if he needed to revise them for the thirty-fourth time. Feel at the corners in his pocket, then sigh in relief that the note card containing everything he had rehearsed was there still. Back and forth some more. Smooth back his untamed hair in a hopeless attempt to quell its rebellious confusion. Then, back to back and forth.

The most anxious five minutes of Beast Boy's life consisted of a recursive loop of these actions. He wore a scuffed path on the steely floor and a look of terrified impatience on his face, like a man awaiting gallows at dawn. "Hey," he practiced aloud, "Funny meeting you here…outside your own room. Heh. No." He scowled, and tried again. "So, how's a hip guy like me s'posed to come a'knockin' when your room's always rockin'? Heh, 'cause, you know, you move…rocks. And…yeah. Nooo! Jeez," he grumbled, and decided on the direct approach. "Listen, there's this Monkey Movie Marathon down at the Ultraplex this Friday, and I was wondering…"

"—how to avoid such a cinematic travesty?" Beast Boy yelped and jumped into the air as Raven rounded the corner, finishing his thought for him. She clutched a thick tome against her chest. Her hair swung free from her lowered head, which shook with disappointment while Beast Boy tried to compose himself. "I didn't realize they made enough watchable movies about monkeys to make a marathon."

"Raven," gasped Beast Boy. His flip sweat intensified under the sorceress' scrutiny. Probing purple eyes dissected his intent simply by flickering to the nameplate next to the door that lassoed Beast Boy's attention. Five letters were more than enough explanation for her, but her changeling teammate insisted on giving her further elaboration on his transparent intent. "I was just…looking for something."

She grunted. "Outside of Terra's room. For five minutes." His flapping mouth pulled her lips back into a tight smirk. "The only thing you're looking for is a date." At his shocked, guilty expression, she added, "I could hear you all the way down the hall through my door."

"I wasn't that loud," protested Beast Boy.

Raven closed in, much to Beast Boy's dismay, and tapped on his chest, just above his heart. "Not with your mouth, maybe," the empath countered. "The whole floor's blaring with anxiety. It's like a foghorn in my brain." She pointed up at the ceiling. "Just on my way to the roof to find some quiet."

"Sorry." Beast Boy hung his head sheepishly. Raven had never complained about her powers picking up background emotions from across the Tower before. He must have been more nervous than he thought.

With a nod, Raven started off again. She stopped when Beast Boy picked up where he left off, pacing and muttering to himself. A distant look entered her eyes, eventually working its way back to him. "You might try flowers. Women respond better to those than to inane babbling and movies about smelly primates."

Beast Boy sounded hurt. "What's wrong with monkeys?"

"Nothing," Raven replied, "If you're courting a seven-year-old. Women like maturity. Refinement. Two of the many things you lack in spades."

Now Raven was starting to get under Beast Boy's skin, echoing the fears in his own head as she did. "Hey," he said, "I don't lack maturity in Spain, or any other place. I'm way mature." His stamping foot tried to further his point, but only hindered it. "I've got, like, a butt-load of maturity."

"Yeah. Real mature. What lady could resist?" Raven rolled her eyes.

Enough was enough. "Yeah? Well, let's just see!" Beast Boy took a deep breath to puff his chest out in a simulation of the confidence he wished he had. He stepped up to Terra's door and raised his knuckles. A moment's uncertainty drew his gaze back to Raven, whose muted bemusement cinched the deal. He knocked against the double doors and called out, "Tara? Hey, Tara, can I talk to you for a sec?" There was no answer. Beast Boy saw Raven's smirk grow infinitesimally as his spirits broke into a flaming tailspin. He knocked harder. "Tara? Taaaa-raaaa?"

Raven could watch the display no longer. Deadpanned, she said, "She's not in there. She and Robin are training downstairs."

Beast Boy blinked. "You knew that, and you let me…" He reddened at her lack of remorse, not an easy feat for someone of emerald complexion. "Oh, real funny, Raven."

"Not really." Raven shrugged. "I thought it was pathetically amusing at best." She watched him pivot on his heel and stomp off with clenched fists and grumbling mumbles. The corner curtained his exit, beyond which he was undoubtedly headed for a lift to take him down to the training deck. Part of her felt guilty for the passive-aggressive torture she put his emotions through. She wondered why she gave in to such puerile urges. One look at Terra's nameplate, still beset with the residual lust left in Beast Boy's wake, was more than enough to cure her of that question. "Go get her," she muttered to the empty air without sincerity.

* * *

A sphere of dirt the size of a baseball careened through the air, chasing the flapping hem of a black and yellow cape all around the high ceilinged training center deep within Titans Tower. Metal boots sprang from weight machines, treadmills, punching bags, and anything else their owner could think of to test his new superstrengthed acrobatics off of. A willowy blonde tracked his movement from the center of the room, pivoting in place with eyes of burning amber as her earthen projectile chased him about. 

"Whoa!" Robin sailed from the ground to the top of Cyborg's nine-story shoulder press in a single bound. Sparks leapt from his soles as he ground to a halt atop the tower of metal weights and ducked underneath the rounded dirt clod. "Almost got me that time, Tara."

Terra grinned and brought her ball back around for another pass. "Maybe it's time I took the kid gloves off, Super Robin." The ball picked up speed and made a tighter turn than ever before. It managed to catch a triangle of Robin's hair and turn it brown before he could avoid the shot.

Wind whistled in Robin's ears as he took to the air again. Every cell in his body felt charged and alive. He could hardly believe that just two weeks ago, he had lived in fear of the alien altering his biochemistry from its new home just behind his ribs. Colors seemed brighter, the air felt crisper, and he never before felt so energized. The fall from the top of the dizzying shoulder press machine, formerly lethal to his fragile human body, now seemed like nothing to the nigh-invulnerable flesh covering a skeleton that the doctors told him could outstrip steel in durability.

Tile crunched beneath his landing just inches in front of Terra. The geokinetic girl's squeal of fright was muffled as her own dirt ball crashed over Robin's crouched form and straight into her own chops. Her own determination to catch him proved to be her downfall, literally, as the force of the blow knocked her off her feet and sprayed dirt all over her pale face. She sat there a moment, groaning and sputtering up chunks of her weapon. Robin offered her a hand up, which Terra accepted with minor reluctance.

"When you take the gloves off," he lectured her, "You're liable to split a knuckle."

"Har, har," she harrumphed. The dirt trickled from her face at her behest, pooling back into her palm and resolidifying into a new sphere. "How long did it take you to come up with that gem?"

He grinned. "A few days," he admitted shamelessly. His focus shifted over to the weight bench behind her, and the rack of barbells and weight disks beyond that. An ambling gait carried him forward, separate from his disconnected and wandering thoughts. The lecture continued on autopilot, pulled from hours spent at the bruising end of Batman's instruction. "Just because you're not shaking cities apart anymore is no reason to stop practicing toward greater control. Superpowers aren't a license to quit training."

Terra followed, more intrigued by his faraway examination of the weights than his nitpicking lesson, which still deserved some scorn if only for the sake of driving Robin nuts. "Thanks, Professor," she said, "Any other nuggets of wisdom, or are we done in the Danger Room for today?"

The words never reached Robin as he took a fifty-pound free weight in his hand. He curled it a few times, experimenting with the feel of its heft. He could remember the strain he felt lifting that very weight. At the moment, he wondered if anything was in his hand at all. His arm didn't look any different. It didn't seem as beefy as his alien strength should make it. Yet, as he squeezed the free weight's handle and transferred it to his other hand, he could see the indentations made in the metal, fitted perfectly to his fingers.

"Does it hurt?" The question, murmured in his ear, caught Robin off-guard. Were it not for his training, he would have jumped at Terra's sudden proximity. "The alien thing, I mean. Is it hurting you?"

Robin grasped either end of the weight. The metal shrieked in complaint as he bent the ends together with nothing but a light grunt to show for effort. "Pain's the only thing I can't feel anymore," he said, hushed in awe of his own accomplishment. "The only downside is, I don't know what to do with myself anymore."

"What do you mean?"

He ran the weight back and forth in his hands. "I used to spend at least four hours training daily. Assuming the city wasn't about to be overrun by mutant bugs or robots, I'd sometimes train eight or nine hours. Now?" He sighed, not sure whether to be pleased or disgusted. "Now I can't even keep up with my own body."

Terra indulged in a guilty little smile. "Sounds like our little Robbie-Poo is coming down with a case of Puberty Blues."

The tiny joke went unanswered, but his complaints went on. "I keep crushing my birdarangs, smashing consoles, breaking dishes…And I just keep getting stronger. When's it going to stop?"

This time Terra's smile held no snide malice. "The Training King, giving up? I don't think so."

Robin returned her smile. He sat down on the weight bench, still juggling the bent free weight. "Just because I can't control how much better I get doesn't mean you can't, too." He nodded at the perfect sphere in her hand. "Lift that into the air."

An odd request, but she saw no reason not to. The orb rose from her palm and rotated lazily in front of her face. She pulled her hand away, but the ball remained. A twinkle of gold crept into her eyes. "That's it?"

"Now split it. Two spheres."

Trickier than his first request. Terra concentrated on the ball, molding it to her will. The dirt clod undulated as it underwent mitosis, pulling into two separate pieces. They bobbed in midair, and then they stabilized. Terra sent the two new orbs spinning around each other. "Easy," she smirked.

Robin let her enjoy her self-satisfaction a few seconds more. Then he said, "Now split them both." Her fallen features fueled his smile.

The two orbs taxed Terra more than she let on, but she wasn't about to let on to Robin. "Sure," she said with less confidence than before. Her dirt spheres trembled and sundered themselves, this time with greater, more noticeable effort. One of the spheres nearly dropped after reforming, but she managed to keep them all aloft. Her trembling lip vanished beneath a row of ivory teeth in a gesture of concentration as four new spheres, each the size of a shooter marble, orbited her index finger. She celebrated her achievement with a nervous laugh, but never took her eyes from the quartet. Such fine manipulation was tricky, especially with multiple targets, and required all her focus.

Robin nodded. "Impressive."

"Thanks," she beamed.

"Now split them again."

"What?" She gasped in disbelief, but Robin's expression remained solid. Sighing, she glared at the spiraling spheres at her fingertip. The spark in her eyes blossomed into golden fire, consuming the crystal blue as her focus intensified. Her throat rumbled with a low moan as her four spheres shook with the effort. Slowly, wobbly, the four balls began to break and double down.

"Tara! Hey, Tara!"

Terra gasped as Beast Boy's booming voice bombarded her from all sides, blasting from the doorway and echoing off the high ceilings. Her tiny orbs quaked and disintegrated, victims of his rotten timing. With a frustrated growl, Terra whirled on Beast Boy as he bounded into the room with a look of nervous excitement. "Gar! Look what you made me do."

He glanced at the scattered dirt sprinkled on her boots. "Huh?"

"I almost had it," she groused, kicking some of the practice dirt at Beast Boy out of frustration. "Can't you go anywhere without shouting and making a big deal out of everything?"

Beast Boy's ego shrank three sizes that day. He looked to the floor and fiddled his fingers together. "Sorry," he squeaked.

Flooding guilt doused the flames of her anger as she watched Beast Boy slump into a proverbial puddle. She took deep breath and exhaled her impatience. "It's okay," she said. "What's up?"

"Uh…" There was no way he could ask her out now, especially not with Robin watching with bemused curiosity. But with both of their attentions focused on him now, Beast Boy was forced to do what he did worst; think on his feet. "I just wanted to tell you how…cool your goggles are." He coughed a pathetic laugh and rubbed the back of his head.

"Oh. Okay." Terra eyed the changeling. "Have you been eating Raven's tea leaves again?"

The lighting in the room began to strobe, bathing everything in shades of red, and a klaxon pounded the air. The alert cut Beast Boy's answer off and set all three Titans on edge. Cyborg's voice boomed over the klaxon, _"We've got a hot one on the monitor. Cinderblock's been spotted at the quarry outside of town, and he isn't look for any cousins of his."_

Robin's face hardened between flashes of red. He shoved the useless weight at Beast Boy by instinct, discarding the burden and charging forward. Unable to cope with the weight, Beast Boy crumpled to the floor with a yelp that was lost to the din. "Let's move," Robin yelled. Terra followed fast, but stopped to glance back at Beast Boy questioningly.

"Coming," he grunted, pushing the painful weight from his chest.

* * *

A man-made crater three hundred yards across and a hundred feet straight down was the site of a walking avalanche's rampage. Much of what made up Jump City had come from the quarry, founded atop a rich mineral vein and prosperous for many decades. Now its theme was one of destruction, not creation, as its hard-working denizens fled about in terror. 

A bulldozer trundled along, a half dozen feet above the operating altitude its owners' manual recommended. It met with a fiery, thunderous end against the sheer quarry wall, peppering its former drivers beneath it with hot shrapnel. The two men screamed, first in agony, then in fear, before the wreckage of their vehicle silenced them for good.

Quarry men ran all about, seeking escape from Cinderblock's indiscriminate rage. The walking collection of mortar appeared more interested in creating chaos and property damage in lieu of any actual plan. Several men had died at his hands, some even so unlucky as to wind up as jelly underfoot. However, those fatalities were never premeditated, but rather more collateral damage, barely worth a grunted chuckle from the leviathan.

Cinderblock had just picked up a dump truck and was about to hurl it into another dump truck when the whole affair lifted right out of his hands. He looked up at his misfired projectile, now glazed with a pulsating ebony coat, and watched as it slammed onto his face with the force of an explosion. Another explosion followed quickly when the gas tank ruptured and sparked, consuming Cinderblock's world in a sea of agony.

Standing ten yards back, the Titans admired Raven's handiwork. "Slammin'," Cyborg quipped to his teammate floating above.

Robin caught the arm of one of the quarry workers. Their numbers had ceased the panic when Cinderblock vanished beneath flaming wreckage, and now stared in awe of the arrived heroes, cheering the rescue. "Get your people out of here," ordered the Titans' leader.

"You don't gotta tell me twice!" The man disappeared in a blur of safety orange, shouting for his coworkers to follow. They scuffled up the steep slope leading back to higher round, the only exit from the artificial crater. Now only the Titans remained as targets for Cinderblock's wrath. And as Cinderblock tore apart the burning truck chassis, it was clear he had found plenty of wrath to go around.

"Give up now," Robin warned their foe, "And we can keep this civil."

Beast Boy sneered, "C'mon, Cindi. You're majorly C-list. You really think you can take on six Titans after that truck to the head?"

The stonefaced villain evidently thought so, and burst forth from the wreckage with an unintelligible howl. Ribbons of fire hung in his wake as he barreled at the heroic formation. The ground quaked with each tremendous footfall, more so as he drew near, prompting Robin to shout the unnecessary, "Titans, move!"

Five teens split off in all directions to dodge the clumsy attack. Cyborg remained, matching Cinderblock's glare and standing his ground. He caught a titanic fist in his open palm and rode the force of the punch back. The earth yielded to his molybdenum steel feet, plowing twin lines as he and Cinderblock ground to a halt. Cyborg's human eye cracked open, taking in the sight of his flat hand straining successfully against Cinderblock's fist. "Booyah," he crowed, "Paper beats rock!"

Cinderblock snagged Cyborg's fist and swung around, hurtling the Titan across the quarry in a hammer throw. Cyborg's frantic yell cut out as his face became one with the rock wall. The victory was short-lived, though, as Starfire dove from above, throwing starbolts and insults. "You vile creature," she cried as she hammered him with burning green energy. "I will not allow you to—"

Whatever Starfire wasn't about to allow disappeared with an 'eep!' as Cinderblock's hand swung up and batted her away in mid-flight. She spiraled along a dizzying path away from his backhand, drawing a rumbling chortle from the villain.

"Starfire!" Robin abandoned the careful battle plan being laid out in his head for a straightforward bulrush. He sped past Beast Boy and Terra, who were setting up for their own attacks, and springboarded off of Cinderblock's knee into his face. The metal in his boot warped beneath the force of his kick that snapped Cinderblock's head skyward. Robin completed his flip and readied his other boot for a follow-up roundhouse kick when Cinderblock's hands clapped together, sandwiching him between two walls of living cement.

"Robin!" Starfire recovered from her daze at the sight of Robin's predicament and shot down, pumping energy into her hands for an all-out starbolt volley.

She never got the chance. Grinding against the rock, Robin fought to position his arms. Cinderblock rumbled in anticipation of crushing the Teen Wonder like an overripe melon. The spray of organs and fluids when his skin ballooned and burst would no doubt be a gory, glorious sight, but Robin had other plans. "Sorry to disappoint you," he growled, "But I'm stronger than I look."

He began pushing his arms out, focusing all the tension in his body along a straight line in opposite directions. Cinderblock's strength was greater, but Robin's was more focused, and slowly, inevitably, Cinderblock watched in shocked helplessness as his hands were forced apart. Using his now-straightened arms as an axis, Robin rotated up and delivered another snap kick more powerful than the first to his captor's jaw. A hairline crack split the length of Cinderblock's jaw and laid him flat out. He lay in a heap, surrounded by a cloud of dust, clearly without any fight left.

Robin coughed up a lungful of granulated stone as his Titans converged. He couldn't hear himself think over Starfire's worried chatter as she circled the air around him, fussing and fuming at his recklessness. "Robin, you are safe!" she squeaked. Then her face darkened, and she wagged her finger in his face. "That was a foolish maneuver. You could have been hurt!"

"Yeah," Beast Boy grunted, "Way to run right into our line of fire." He exchanged glances of irritation with Terra.

They were right, and Robin knew it. He weighed his options, deciding in the end that he couldn't weasel out of it, and decided to own up. "Sorry," he said. "I'm still a little new to this super deal." Raven floated down from above in time for him to ask, "Do we have an idea on a casualty count?"

Raven closed her eyes, stretching her otherworldly senses to the fleeing foreman of the quarry. His thoughts tangled together with fear, making it difficult to read the information she desired from his mind. "They're frightened," she murmured, caught between planes. "There are a dozen men the foreman can't find. He saw at least half that many die with his own eyes." Thin tears trickled from her flickering eyelids as she relived each of the deaths through the terrified man's memories. A tiny sob got caught in her throat when she severed the connection. The force of returning to her own body swayed her balance, but Beast Boy's quick and steadying hand kept her standing.

The humor drained from Robin's face. He looked back at Cinderblock, whose head pulled dizzily against gravity. He stepped back and cocked his fist, then drove his knuckles deep into Cinderblock's face with a bellowing snarl. The creature's nose shattered beneath the blow, and his head pounded back against the ground. Robin didn't know if Cinderblock could heal like normal living beings. He didn't care, and pulled his fist back for another blow.

Cyborg reached out and snagged Robin's green glove. His whole body still trailed chalky dust from his trip into the rock wall, and he had more right than any of them to be angry with Cinderblock. "Robin," he said quietly.

Robin blinked. "Sorry," he said again, this time in a hush. Chunks of gravel in black ichor dripped from his hand as he lowered his fist. The silence howled amidst the heroes, challenged only by the whisper of the wind at their feet. "Cyborg," said Robin after a spell, "Call the SCU. Have them send a pickup team." His voice crackled with lingering tendril of his rage. "I want Cinderblock out of Jump City. I want him in The Vault. I don't care what it takes."

"This creature is the least of your worries, Teen Titans," a booming call echoed from atop one of the sheer walls. The Titans drew their collective gaze to the source, a mass of flapping white, vaguely humanoid in shape, with dark eyes staring out of a shadowed hood. A hand pulled itself from the robes and tore them away, revealing a compact frame contained within a gleaming gi. Waves of long, dark hair billowed out behind him as he announced, "Your lives belong to Bushido. Make amends with your creator, and know peace." His hand flicked to the teal sash at his waist, then out toward the Titans.

The tiny shapes flickered in the air. "Move!" cried Robin. They separated again as the ground was peppered in tiny concussive blasts. Dirt clouded the air, choking the Titans and cloaking Bushido's drop from the cliff. He landed without a sound, kneeing with his hand on his hilt.

Terra lowered her goggles, which came alive with the radiant glow of her earthly power. The dusty cloud pushed out at her command, clearing the battlefield. "This bozo's mine!" she boasted, and brought her hands up. The ground beneath Bushido's feet rumbled, throwing off his balance as her Mother Earth heeded her call. Tendrils of rock began to snake up and knit together into a bubble of stone ten feet across that would swallow the newcomer up.

Bushido's reaction was instant. His other hand flicked out this time, releasing a steel cord that fed from within his sleeve. The cord snapped out and around Terra's waist, tying tight with itself using a small, spherical weight at its end. Terra gasped as the thin line bit into her exposed midriff, then screamed when Bushido yanked hard, pulling her off her feet and into her own trap. The dome of dirt and stone sealed itself as Terra disappeared through its waning gaps.

Beast Boy jumped at the dome, morphing in midair. "Terra," he howled. His green gorilla form slammed into Terra's structure, shrieking and pounding against its foot-thick walls without effect. An inhuman roar exploded from his throat.

Robin's low-yield explosives proved themselves equally ineffective on the dome's other side, and he dared not use anything more powerful for fear of crushing Terra. Likewise, Starfire's barrage from above only scratched the dome's surface, unable to punch through. Cyborg joined Beast Boy in battering the bubble by hand and shouted, "Raven, see if you can crack this egg." A guttural shriek from inside the rock walls made him add, "Hurry!"

Panic roiled in the air, but Raven pushed it away. Her cloak flapped behind her high above the dome. She forced the surrounding emotions out of her mind, stamped down on similar emotions burbling inside her, and reached out with her ethereal hands. "Azarath…" Liquid black spilled across the surface of the rock, engulfing Terra's dome in translucent ebony. "Metrion…" A crack ran from one end of the dome to the other. Trails of dust lifted along the lines of Raven's telekinesis. "Zin—"

The dome shattered from within. Raven's pulling accelerated the process, blowing the Titans back. Chunks of stone battered them through the blinding wall of dust. Squinting, Robin caught sight of a dark shape in the cloud. It swam through the debris curtain, then vanished. "He's getting away! Titans—"

"Terra!" A terrified cry leapt from Beast Boy's throat and consumed the expansive quarry. All eyes were on him as he knelt over Terra's still form. The pale, bare skin between her shirt and her shorts held a growing puddle of reddish-black. It pooled in her navel and spilled out, staining the powdered stone beneath her.

As much as he hated letting anyone get away, Robin knew the choice was obvious. "Raven, can you get her back to the Tower?"

"I don't know if she'd survive the teleport," Raven said calmly, floating to the ground. "Transcending planes can be—"

"Stabilize her," barked Robin, ignoring her irritated scowl. "Cyborg, get the car, ASAP." Robin glared, clenching his fists to contain the frustration welling up in him. "It's over for now."

'But not for long,' he vowed silently.

**To Be Continued**


	13. Honor: Methods

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Honor**: _Methods_

"He's a ninja!"

Robin looked up from the Titan Command Computer Console and swiveled away from its screen. An irritated tic worked at the lower edge of his eye, evidence of what he kept well regulated in himself. "He's not a ninja, Gar."

Tower Ops had suffered this cyclical argument for the past twenty minutes, ever since Cyborg and Raven had tossed Beast Boy out of the Medical Bay for being a clingy pest during Terra's stabilization. His hysterics over her pale complexion and shallow breathing would have done more damage than she suffered at sword point were it not for her teammates' expelling him at his first attempt of CPR. With no one else to bother, Beast Boy took his act upstairs to Ops, where Robin and Starfire bore the brunt of his apprehension.

Carving a frantic, pacing path behind Robin's chair, Beast Boy shot back, "Dude, were you at the same fight? N-I-N-G-A spells ninja!"

A soft review of the letters from Beast Boy's spelling tumbled beneath Starfire's breath, cross-referenced with what she knew of English spelling. From her seat on the couch, she had born witness to the back and forth between Robin and Beast Boy with such animation that her neck began to develop a crick from the constant volley between the two earthlings. Then she turned to Robin and asked, "Please forgive my ignorance of this subject, but is a ninja some form of demon?"

Pressure worked against the inside of Robin's skull. There were times, however few, when he longed to be back in Gotham City, where he was the clueless one, and someone else was always there to tell him the score. "Gar," he groaned, "For the sake of argument, what makes him a ninja?"

Beast Boy looked at Robin, wondering briefly if the Teen Wonder's garish cape was tied too tight. "What, you mean besides the funky jammies, the Ryu headband, and the ninja-y little pellet bombs? How about that ninja sword he used to give Tara another belly button. That seemed like an awesome clue right there!" Hands on hips, he huffed with bubbling exasperation.

"Uh huh." Leaning back, Robin steepled his fingers. Beast Boy's confidence gradually waned beneath his leader's steady glower. "Do you even know what a ninja is?"

"Pajamas, pellets, throwing stars, swords…" Beast Boy shrugged. "What's to know?"

Robin's headache gobbled up Beast Boy's words and became bloated from its ravenous gluttony. He massaged the bridge of his nose and concentrated on the back of his eyelids with a sigh. "Gar, being a ninja has nothing to do with weapons or clothes. 'Ninja' is a profession, not a fashion statement." Robin watched his words bounce off of Beast Boy and Starfire without effect, and sighed again. "Back in feudal Japan, ninja were hired assassins. They would take any job for the right price, and carrying it out by any means. Poisons, rifles, traps…anything. Their targets never saw them coming."

Starfire put two and two together well before Beast Boy did. "But the Boo-shee-doh announced both his presence and his intentions to us before attacking."

"I guess…" grumbled Beast Boy.

Swinging back to his keyboard, Robin pulled up the file he had been compiling on their new enemy. Bushido's picture appeared on Ops' main monitor, a head shot identical to the face that the Titans had scrambled against hours earlier. "Ryuko Orsono, a native of Japan. He's wanted by Interpol for questioning regarding multiple homicides." The screen split, shoving Bushido's image aside to display a scrolling rap sheet that read like an obituary column.

Beast Boy whistled, and his eyes grew wide. "I didn't know you could stretch 'multiple' that far." Then he blinked as Robin's words caught up with him. "Wait. Questioning? For murder?"

"There isn't any evidence to implicate him, only hearsay. The murder scenes were clean." Robin shook his head, and brought up more pictures with a few keystrokes.

Gruesome, bloodied chalk lines collaged onto the ten-foot plasma screen. Starfire's skin drained itself of its golden pallor at the sight, but she clamped down on her lower lip to smother her gasp. Such a slight breath would have been drowned out by Beast Boy's astonished moan. Even Robin swallowed hard as the pictures continued to pile up on each other. "Each victim was found in seclusion, either fortified in a position with guards nearby, or they were found on the run." The Teen Wonder felt his innards clench. "Sudden trips to faraway locations," he said, "All without prior warning or planning."

"An assassin!" squawked Beast Boy. His eyes grew wide with the fear that they were now Bushido's target, but also at the thought that he was right and Robin had been wrong. Such a thing was only the stuff of dreams until that moment. "He's a ninja, just like I said."

But again, Starfire deduced the truth. "The victims all attempted to protect themselves or flee. They were warned."

"One victim being tipped off is sloppiness. Five is a security leak. But every victim?" Robin's voice became grave. "He warns them. He lets each of his victims know he's coming."

Beast Boy began to catch on. "But why would anyone tell the person they're going to kill that they're going to kill them?"

More keystrokes banished the disturbing collection of police photos, returning it to Bushido's head shot. "The answer's in his name," he replied. "Japanese samurai followed a code that dictated their actions. That code, 'bushido,' would demand that an enemy be given fair warning before an attack."

"Like he did with us," murmured Starfire.

Robin nodded in agreement. "Like he did with us," he echoed.

The doors to Ops swooshed open, bringing Cyborg into the tortured silence. He caught sight of his three teammates and their pensive study of the image on the screen. Just the sight of their would-be assassin made him ill with memories of what he had just come from. Now he was ready to do something proactive. "Hey, gang," he sighed. "Any luck with our new ninja friend?"

"He's not a ninja," Robin and Starfire said in a distracted unison, still staring at the screen.

Blinking at the answer, Cyborg didn't see Beast Boy edge up next to him. "It's a long story, dude. Robin'll tell you in really long, boring words in a sec." He disappeared from view again, only to wind up on atop Cyborg's shoulders. "How is she? Is she okay? Is she awake?" Beast Boy's upside-down face consumed Cyborg's vision.

Reaching up, Cyborg lifted him bodily from his shoulders. "Alive, yes, and no, in that order." A deep breath whistled through Beast Boy's wobbling lips, but before he could ask the obvious, Cyborg cut him off. "Yes, you can go see her. Provided," he added with upraised finger, "That you take it easy and keep quiet." Beast Boy was out of the room before Cyborg reached the 't' in 'quiet'.

As the doors shut behind Beast Boy, Starfire floated up and toward her metallic friend. The world-weary look in his eye concerned her, and so she reached out to touch his arm. His alloys were as bright and polished as ever, but his fatigue was no harder to spot than her own. The flesh on his arm felt clammy, and trembled at her touch. Heavy circles hung under his eye and betrayed what his smile tried to mask. "You are not well," she said, concerned.

"I'll feel a lot better when we've figured out who tried to kill Rock'n'Roller," he griped back. Seeing Starfire's face fall, he softened his voice and squeezed her arm back. "All right. What are we dealing with?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary," Robin replied without looking back. "Just a samurai assassin bent on killing us."

Cyborg allowed Starfire to pull him toward the screen. Tired though his organic eye might be, his optical implant kept close watch over Robin. An outburst like the one they had witnessed from him with Cinderblock warranted some caution. "So, do we have a plan?"

Robin re-steepled his fingers and leaned back. "Well," he admitted, "My first idea was to head out and track him down on my own, leaving you guys here on the defensive." Quick to follow was, "But I didn't think that would go over well."

Let her Robin go out and look for this Boo-shee-doh creature on his own, without any backup or protection? "Certainly not," Starfire said flatly.

Let new and untested Super Robin run around Jump City on his own, chasing some freaky Kung Fu swordsman? "Got that right," Cyborg grunted.

"Which is why," continued Robin, "I thought we'd go with a different split of the team."

* * *

The Medical Bay doors spat Raven out into the hall. She clutched at her stomach and leaned heavily against the opposite wall, allowing herself a moment to just breathe. The cloak around her shoulders shuddered up and down until her mental faculties caught up with her body's demands. A light breakfast worked at her stomach, threatening to fight its way up after an entire morning's incarceration. The searing pain slicing through her abdominals only bolstered breakfast's rebellious ranks. 

A seething ball of exuberant hope screeched from down the hall, drawing nearer and ringing in her empathic ears. Her teeth grinded together at its approach, but did little to dull the oncoming squall. It took all her willpower to draw herself up and steady her breathing so that when Beast Boy rounded the corner, she appeared composed and in control.

"Raven," he huffed breathlessly, and leaned against the very wall Raven had just abandoned. "Hey. Is Tara-?"

Raven nodded, keeping her chest tight to reign in the shake in her voice. "She's stable. We've got her sedated for the moment with enough drugs to keep her under until the worst of the pain passes. She'll feel like hell for a few days," she admitted, "But that's more than most people could say after being stabbed."

Relief poured out of Beast Boy, a veritable Niagara of happiness. "That's great!" His grin threatened to tear his face in twain. But Raven's face didn't resemble his own, taking instead the expression of someone who discovered a tack on their seat by way of sitting on it. "Right?" he asked.

"Super," she grunted. With a satisfied smile, he started for the door. Raven let him get halfway there before a solid shaft of her soul-self spread horizontally in front of his face, stopping him with brain-rattling finality. "What do you think you're doing?"

The question taxed his already befuddled mind. "Um, going in to see Tara? Duh."

"To reiterate: Terra is sedated. She's injured. And the last thing she needs," rumbled Raven, "Is a hyperactive, lovesick butterfingers with delusions of nursehood hovering over her." Her piercing eyes cut through Beast Boy's protests and incinerated them in an irate indigo inferno. "No exceptions," she said.

Beast Boy returned her ire with a wild look and bared canines. "That's not fair!" The hackles on the back of his neck bristled. "You said I could see her once she was better."

"And she isn't," Raven shot back. The pain in her stomach screamed to her with every word forced out in the argument, but she would never back down from Beast Boy. Better to be dead first. "'Stable' isn't out of the woods yet. One bump could reopen that wound, and she'd be worse off than before."

"You're enjoying this, aren't you? Just like you were before, laughing at me inside of your hood," the anguished boy hissed. A dangerous scowl crossed Raven's face, but he took no notice of the warning. "You never liked me, or Tara, and now you're yukking it up." The words caught in his throat as he said, "You're nothing but a hateful, cruel, awful-"

Anger flared to life inside Raven's emotional black hole, fueled by the gasoline Beast Boy saw fit to heap onto it. Her cloak started billowing out at her feet in the still air, and she felt herself beginning to rise off the floor, carried aloft by her own rage. "You ungrateful little..." she growled in a reverberating voice. Then the gods smiled down on Beast Boy, for the added movement proved to be too much for Raven's phantom injury to take. She doubled over and dropped to the floor in a pool of navy fabric, groaning and clutching her stomach. Her insides felt as though they were rending themselves apart.

All of his angst vanished in his wake as Beast Boy rushed forward. "Raven!" he cried, kneeling down and pulling her hood back. A dribble of frothing saliva at the corner of her pale lips made him feel like the heel he knew he was. "You're hurt," he whispered. "How—?"

"I'm fine." Raven tried to wave him off, but removing her hand from the floor only dropped her impossibly heavy head further. If not for Beast Boy, her nose would have struck the polished marble tile. She saw the ghosted reflection of a haggard, pathetic wretch gasping behind the floor, and she sneered at its weakness. "When I heal someone," she explained reluctantly, "I have to accept their pain as my own. It's the nature of the spell. Temporary," she said with muted vexation, "But intense."

Beast Boy ignored her feeble insistences that she could get up on her own. His wiry arms escorted her back to her feet while his eyes examined the rest of her. No injury became apparent, but the way she clutched at her stomach was proof enough for him. "I never knew," he said.

"I never told you." She grimaced. Already, the pain started to fade. It was bad luck that Beast Boy hadn't come a few minutes later, when the pain would have been just a memory. "There's no reason any of you needed to know."

His thoughts were far from her harried protests for privacy. Instead, he recalled those instances when Raven's regenerative spells had kept him alive and fighting the good fight. Having felt such pain on a firsthand basis, he couldn't imagine taking on someone else's pain willingly. Those helping hands of his didn't leave her after she had steadied herself, and instead grasped her by the shoulders. "Thank you, Raven," he said. "For what you did. I…It means a lot to me."

"I didn't do it for you," she sniffed.

"Maybe." He smiled, saying, "But I appreciate it anyway."

Raven looked torn for a moment. Something within her steely gaze melted, reflecting his broad smile, tender warmth with which she had no experience. That warmth seeped down into her stomach, tossing it with another alien feeling she couldn't quite call unpleasant. But once she recognized that feeling, and the danger it represented, she tossed his hands aside and smothered the flickering flames inside her. A quick tug brought her hood back around her head, shrouding her glower in shadow. "Just promise you won't hug me."

The sudden distance startled Beast Boy. "Uh, right," he laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. The waves of antipathy buffeted him even further back, until the gap between them became comfortable for her again. "No problem."

The ill ease haunting their conversation fled as a beeping and flashing emanated from Raven's clasp. Her hand ghosted across its surface, bringing its blinking to a halt so that her silhouetted namesake rode a solid beacon of red light. "Raven. Go."

_"Raven,"_ Robin's voice funneled through the link from elsewhere, _"Is Beast Boy there with you?"_

She eyed Beast Boy as the changeling leaned in and projected into her bust line, "Right here. What's the word, Birdman?" Then he grunted as her hand squashed his ear and shoved him away.

* * *

Robin stalked down the halls of the Tower, flanked by Starfire and Cyborg a few steps behind. His communicator hung on his lips, transmitting his barking voice to the absent Titans. Stairs yielded to his feet in twos and threes, the victim of his reasserted determination. "We've got a working plan. Beast Boy will fill you in on Bushido. You and he will stay behind and protect the Tower." 

_"So now I'm a babysitter in addition to my nursemaid duties?"_ All three Titans got the impression she wasn't just referring to Terra.

"He's an assassin. There's a good chance he'll hit us where we live. If he does, you two will be waiting for him. Let base defenses soften him up, and then take him down."

_"Fine. So where are you going on vacation while Beast Boy and I play with this contract killer? Can we expect a postcard?"_

Starfire leaned close to Cyborg's swinging metal arm and whispered, "Am I imagineering things, or is Raven more lobstery than usual?" Odd vocabulary aside, Cyborg nodded in silent agreement of her assessment.

Eye ticking with irritation, Robin continued, "Cyborg, Starfire, and I are going to sweep Jump City in a grid search."

As the trio reached the bottommost level of the Tower, Beast Boy's voice broke in through Raven's signal once more_. "I don't think a ninja is going to be as easy to find as some of the other noisy bozos we fight."_ There was another thud of fist on flesh, presumably Raven reasserting her personal space.

The expansive door to the Vehicle Bay recessed upward at their approach, ratcheting to a halt with an echoing clang. Robin stopped just at the Bay's edge, taking stock of the two vehicles they would use on the mission. Both the T-Car and his R-Cycle stood in gleaming, polished readiness. "If he's as good as we think he is, he'll find us."

_"Well, that couldn't possibly backfire,"_ Raven said.

"You have your assignment. Let us handle ours. Robin out." He snapped his communicator closed with a growl. The tiny device creaked in his hands. A crack broke its casing before Robin got his temper back under control and holstered it in his belt. "All right," he said, stepping forward into the Bay. "I'll start on the West side and work my way inland. Star, you'll head for the suburbs up North and work in. Cyborg, start-"

Sirens and klaxons and lights and noises of terrific intensity annihilated Robin's thoughts and set the trio on edge as their home went berserk around them. Overhead, the three feet of alloy serving as their barrier between the hallway and the Vehicle Bay dropped with a clanking roar. Robin rolled forward to avoid being crushed while his teammates backpedaled. After a blow that rattled the floor, the Teen Wonder found himself trapped in the Vehicle Bay, forcibly separated from the others. He recognized the chaotic procedures at once. "Lockdown? Who initialized Lockdown?"

Muffled pounding worked its way through the door, audible once the emergency din cut itself off. Rather than pound back, he pulled his communicator out again and flipped it open. "Cyborg. Starfire. Do you read?"

_"Robin!"_ came Starfire's frantic reply. _"Our Vehicular Garage has devoured you."_

"Something activated the Lockdown protocols," he explained, hoping to placate her concern. "You and Cyborg get to Ops and see what set it off."

"Actually," a smooth, low voice purred behind him, "I think I can save them a trip."

That voice. Deep, resonating, and sinister to a fault. Robin knew that voice anywhere. It haunted his nightmares and danced at the edge of every waking moment. If he never heard it again, Robin knew he would carry that voice with him to the grave, like a scar burned into his ear. He spun in a swirl of cape, one hand already at his utility belt to unleash his impressive arsenal. His other hand curled into a fist, crushing his communicator. The ill-fated device managed to transmit one last word before its destruction; "Slade."

The reds and blacks of Slade's armor loomed over Robin as the Titan sprang away. With his hands draped behind his back, the villain's eye hinted at some bemused, extreme lack of interest. "Such a quaint little home you've built here, Robin. It's a shame you've never invited me over before."

"It's a shame you couldn't stay longer. Why don't I show you the door?" rumbled Robin. His bo staff stretched at either end, locking into place with a click.

Slade ran his finger along the T-Car's side mirror, checking for dust. Naturally, Cyborg's meticulous, obsessive-compulsive attention left Slade's fingertip immaculate. "That's rather rude of you, don't you think?" He sounded disappointed in his former apprentice. His eye wandered back to the coiled and ready Robin, though his own posture remained relaxed. "We came all this way to visit, and now you want to throw us out? Poor form for a host, Robin." He clucked his tongue with a shake of his head. "The least you could do is entertain us."

"We?" Robin spat. "Who's 'we?'"

Slade shrugged. "Why, Bushido, of course. You don't expect me to kill you _and_ your little friends all on my own, do you?"

The titanium staff in Robin's hands oozed like putty between his fingertips. With a groan, the alloy snapped in two places, falling to the ground in a trio of mangled pieces. A dark smile infested Robin's features as he said, "Maybe you haven't heard. I've been going through some changes."

"On the contrary," remarked Slade. He pulled his hands out from behind his back, revealing a pair of silvery knucklers wrapped through his fists. Bringing them together, he pulled a wide arc of energy between his palms. The scarlet arc bathed his eye in muddling light as it widened with anticipation. "That's my sole reason for this visit."

* * *

Starfire thrashed at the door with all her might. Her hands throbbed with the effort, pulsing with green energy at each impact. The door's gunmetal surface bore evidence of her attack; scratches, dents, even small pools of melted metal cooling at its bottom. But with three feet of metal for her to go through, the door had little to worry about. Not that Starfire realized it. "Robin!" she screamed, clawing a fresh set of glowing red welts into the door. 

Off to one side, Cyborg extended a blade-like data jack from between his knuckles and slid it into the hatch control panel. The system took his request for unsealing the door, processed it, and gave him the digital equivalent of a raspberry. "Ease up, Star. There's no way you'll get through that door without high explosives."

"But Robin," she protested, slumping against her arch foe and gulping in deep breaths. Her eyes literally burned with intense worry. "He is in there, all alone against Slade. I will not allow him to fight alone."

Another raspberry splattered Cyborg's CPU with unseen spittle in ones and zeroes. He fought the urge to wipe his face and tossed back, "Which is why you're gonna get up to Ops and reset the security protocols. After that, all our doors will open, and Tower security will come online and frag Slade." The computer panel blatted openly at him, and sent an unpleasant tingle up his data jack. Still unsuccessful, at least his own security systems were starting to consider him a threat. "I'll stay here and keep trying to force my way in."

Renewed vigor wiped the fatigue from Starfire's face. "I shall fly like the solar winds," she pledged, and did just that. The air scampered aside at her soaring approach and swirled in a wake of fading green light left by the tips of her boots. Cyborg felt bad for sending her away when she thought Robin needed her on the other side of the door. But a familiar and tortured scream fought its way through the thick metal, accompanied by the sound of freed electricity, and assured Cyborg that he had made the right choice.

"Now," he muttered, "If I can just get this stupid door open…" Time and time again in the space of a blink, he asked the computer to let him in, and every time, the computer saw fit to brush his attempts away. Being half-computerized, Cyborg understood better than anyone that hacking was nothing more than a systematic form of inquiry. To get what he wanted, he had to ask the computer in such a way that it could not refuse. The true irony was that Cyborg found himself a victim of his own success; his security systems contained some trace elements of the superstring AI coding that fueled his cognitive functions, and could keep one step ahead of any but the most seasoned hackers. Someone would either have to have unfathomable hacking talent, or be handed the keys to the whole shebang to do something like this. "Open," he growled, "Before I—"

"I fear you haven't the time." Bushido's casual, friendly voice resonated from a healthy ten yards down the hall. Steel sang against steel as Cyborg yanked his data jack out and spun around, snapping himself out of his waking digital dream. The teenaged assassin leaned against the corridor wall, arms folded and chin resting against his chest. His eyes were closed and hidden behind stray locks of hair. "I've studied your programming. It is remarkable work, easily the best I've ever seen."

Cyborg flexed his fingers, retracting his data jack. "You understand if I don't melt with appreciation," he rumbled. Up close, the young samurai didn't look like much. He stood a hair shorter than Robin, and possessed the same wiry build. Cyborg's optical sensors scanned through the spectrum; though blades and shuriken were planted all throughout his gi, Bushido seemed to lack any serious hardware, certainly nothing that could threaten his armor. "So you're the new Big Bad that Slade's got gunning for us? I'm not impressed."

"Adaptive cyber-link security," continued Bushido. "Tricky stuff. The program often changes itself just as you discover a disabling algorithm for its previous configuration. I estimated ten to fifteen minutes of intensive hacking before I would crack the system." Bushido's head lifted, and his eyes snapped open. A studious gaze drank in Cyborg's bristling frame. "I imagine with your direct access and familiarity, you could accomplish it in…five minutes?" He shook his head. "Sadly, you have less than that remaining."

His techno-organic musculature ground against its molybdenum steel casing as Cyborg flexed himself to his fullest stature. "Dude," he snarled, "You'd have maybe one chance in a hundred of taking me out."

"I accept," Bushido replied coolly.

"Say what?"

Bushido rose from the wall and began pulling at his arms, stretching as though he were about to begin a daily calisthenics routine. "You will have ninety-nine unopposed strikes with which to defeat me. On your hundredth attempt, I shall be allowed to counterattack." The folds of his gi flapped as he shook his body loose. Cyborg gaped openly at him until he added, "You may proceed whenever you are ready."

Cyborg roared and charged forward. His arm cocked back like a piston, ready to drive it through Bushido's skull. The space where Bushido's smile had been swam with oversized metal knuckles. They sailed through and into the wall, where they met and destroyed the plaster covering of their vacuum-insulated steel walls. A flash of movement caught the corner of his eye, and he swung his other arm out in a clumsy sweep. The blurry shape landed near his foot, which lashed out into empty air; the shape moved on.

Standing some distance away, Bushido adopted another enigmatic smile. "That's three," he told Cyborg and flashed a trio of fingers at his target in a jaunty wave. "Ninety-six more to go. But I'm sure your chances are still excellent, ne?"

Cyborg gritted his teeth, feeling very much the fool. This little half-pint wanted to toy with him? Fine. "Count this," he grunted. The components of his right arm mechamorphed, sliding and rearranging itself. Fingers slid back as his palm split apart, revealing a resonance amplification aperture that glowed blue with spillover sonic energy. Eight tiny exhaust vents extended from the top of his forearm, ready to vent the excess heat his gun would produce. With a single thought, Cyborg sent a sonic stream streaking at his samurai foe.

The premature, victorious smile Cyborg allowed himself disappeared when his blast struck empty air and stripped the wall behind that down to its armored core. Bushido stood at the edge of the plaster scar as Cyborg cut power to his cannon. "Ninety-five," the assassin called. "You're getting closer, though."

A rerun of Cyborg's ferocious battle cry carried him forward. He swung high, he swung low, and everywhere in between. Kicks, punches, grabs, head butts, one-two combinations, and blast after blast of his sonic cannon. Nothing landed even close. Bushido was like a spirit, ghosting around his attacks with that same damnable smile. A soft count parted that smirk with each fruitless blow. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. As the number grew, so too did Cyborg's frustration, making each blow less effective. Sixty. Seventy. Eighty. Still nothing. Even Bushido's flowing black hair stayed one step ahead of him.

The count had reached ninety-one in just under three minutes. Cyborg couldn't believe the numbers had climbed so fast, but he knew it wasn't wrong. His breath came in gasps and heaves, but Bushido, standing upright with arms folded, hadn't broken a sweat. The katana at his waist swung with the remnants of his fantastic dodging, the only evidence that he had moved at all. "You are trying," Bushido asked, "Are you not?"

A pop and a hiss tore Cyborg's oversized shoulder guards open, revealing twin rocket launchers within. A quartet of stun rockets sprang from both shoulders, dancing and spreading themselves to fill the hallway. The force of the launch drove Cyborg to one knee, but he still caught sight of Bushido's shocked face before it disappeared behind a chain of dazzling blue sonic bursts.

Blinking away the stars in his eyes, Cyborg rose back to his feet. "Booyah!" he grunted, clenching his fist in victorious celebration as the sonic energy dissipated. Chalky gray dust torn free from the walls and ceilings clouded the air. The haze began to settle, and robbed Cyborg of his victory through the revelation of a silhouette.

A globe of energy encompassed Bushido, held steady by the tip of his katana. His shoulders lifted and fell in deep, steady breaths. The white of his gi was turned blue-green through the unnatural shield, which began filtering back into his drawn blade. "Very good, Cyborg," Bushido congratulated him between breaths. "I did not anticipate a need for my ancestors in this fight. I find the unexpected to be quite invigorating, don't you?" His smile returned threefold.

"No…" gasped Cyborg. None of the Intel gathered by Robin indicated any kind of powers.

"Let's see. Eight missiles. I believe that brings the count up to ninety-nine." Smooth, practiced motions guided his katana back into its sheath without a sound. His ancestors whispered snatches of congratulation before settling back into place. "I do believe that makes it my turn."

Bushido became a blur of white cloth as he rushed Cyborg faster than the Titan could remember any other living creature moving. Cyborg's sonic cannon hosed the corridor with a continuous stream that never found its mark. Mere feet from the Titan, Bushido crouched and leapt into a corkscrew flip that carried him over Cyborg's expansive shoulders. Cyborg tracked the path, raising his cannon to catch his enemy in mid-flight. His eyes caught up with Bushido just in time to see a flick of the teen's wrist that ended the fight.

The tip of a blade filled Cyborg's vision as Bushido's throwing dagger breached the lens of his optical implant. Delicate components and circuitry gave way to polished, deadly metal. The blade thrust itself into the heart of Cyborg's CPU, stopping only when the hilt struck his forehead. A painful, nauseating wave of feedback pulsed through his body, overloading every receptor he had before what remained of his brain mercifully fell silent.

Landing on nimble toes, Bushido took a large step back to avoid the avalanche of metal teetering on the brink. A light touch swayed its decision and sent Cyborg's body in the other direction. The floor shook with his fall, and sneezed up a cloud of powdered plaster, glazing the Titan's backside in a light white varnish.

Bushido stared down at his handiwork and offered a quick prayer of thanks to his ancestors. They sang praises of his good work from their sheath as he checked his watch. "Three and a half minutes. A fair time for a metahuman." He straightened the rumpled lines of his gi and smoothed back loose strands of raven hair. One down, three to go. He was particularly interested to see what color the alien girl bled. Alien jobs came so few and far between. "Let's see how your teammates stack up against this standard you've set."

And with a silent song sung by the soaring voices of his ancestors to meter his steps, Bushido left Cyborg's corpse in the dust to find and kill the other Teen Titans.

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	14. Honor: Duel

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Honor**: _Duel_

"What's going on?" Beast Boy bounded from wall to wall, snorting and pawing at every sealed door they encountered. With each doorway denied to him, his frustration doubled. Animalistic grunts stumbled out of his throat as he scratched at the smooth metal with gloved claws. "It's like that time somebody tripped the fire alarm, except this time nobody's around to blame me for it."

Raven glided through the corridor after him. Her twilight brows laced together with concern. "And this time, the Tower isn't filled with the smell of burning tofu," she quipped distractedly. Her heart wasn't in the repartee. Every sense she possessed, mundane and demonic, buzzed with intense attention toward her surroundings. She held her breath at every corner they rounded, wondering if this assassin they were supposed to be hunting would pop out at them. Which one of them would he attack first?

Her waking nightmare of seeing Beast Boy gutted dispelled at his squeaky voice. "I can't raise anyone on the communicators," he insisted. The canary yellow gadget shook in his grasp, blatting a negative response from any of the other Titans' identical devices. "Nobody's answering. Do you think maybe the others got out on their patrol before the Tower went berserk?"

As much as she didn't like killing hope, even Raven had to admit that she had a phenomenal knack for it. "I wouldn't bet on it," she said with a shake of her head. She watched the optimism on his face crumble. The tiny sliver of guilt resulting dug into the heel of her soul, but Raven continued regardless. "It's more likely that this was Bushido's plan all along; Lock us in our own home, and then eliminate us at his own leisure."

"We have to get the doors open," insisted her friend. "Maybe if we get back to Ops, we can—"

"Fiddle with the computer until we realize that we don't know what we're doing?" The gloomy tide flowing from Raven's mouth refused to ebb, no matter how positive Beast Boy became. "However he got in, Bushido's obviously the one who tripped the Lockdown. Cyborg and the others can handle that much. Our best bet is to sweep the corridors, try and pinpoint his location." She pulled her own communicator from her belt. "Hang on a second." With a press of a button, she began speaking into the device. Her voice filtered through Beast Boy's duplicate, "Check one. Check two. Can you hear me?"

He chuckled. "Aw, sweet! Hold on." Beast Boy toddled over and held his communicator up next to Raven's face so that the speaker faced him. "Okay, okay, now say something."

Because of the half-second lag, Beast Boy got to hear her twice. "Stop screwing around before I hurt you," came the stereo reply. If possible, Beast Boy felt her projecting anger double right along with her voice.

Beast Boy pulled back. His communicator's cover snapped closed with a flick of his finger as he forcefully sobered himself. There were no extra eyes growing in the shadows of Raven's hood, but her two amethyst eyes burned with more than sufficient intensity to kill his sense of humor. "Right. Coming through loud and clear, Raven."

"Good."

He seemed unconvinced. "Are you sure you want to split up?"

"Our forces may be thin," she countered, "But he's in our home. _Nobody_ breaks into our home." Raven pointed in one direction, leading down a lonely corridor of the Tower with barricaded doors lining either side, identical to the one they had just patrolled. "You head that way." Her tilted head indicated the other direction, leading down a corridor that mirrored its neighbor. "I'll head this way. Stay out of sight, and above all, **stay quiet**." She hesitated, then added, "And be careful. If you see him, don't take him on. Contact me."

"Yeah, yeah," he waved her off. "Call you, beep you. If I need to reach you, I will. Relax, will you?" He flexed his muscles, hardly stretching the purple fabric of his suit. "We're the Teen Titans, Raven. What's one ninja gonna do to us?"

Raven glowered at his bravado, once again sucking the joy out of his performance. The heat seemed to flee from the room in the wake of her growing shadow. "It's time to grow up, Beast Boy. You can't joke your way through life forever." She turned away so she would not have to see his hurt expression. The other Titans might think otherwise, but she didn't take any real joy in taking Beast Boy down a peg or two. The thought of seeing him hurt because he was too busy screwing around drove her to do just that, for his own good.

His footsteps trailed off down the opposite hall as Raven skimmed over the floor atop the hem of her cloak. Solitude was no stranger to the sorceress, but even she found the poignant silence of their home a little daunting. Just moments ago, the noise had reached unbearable heights, and those idiotic flashing red lights Robin had insisted on designing into their alert system still danced in her vision. But that was all that remained. Now, rather than peaceful, their Tower felt like one giant trap. No corner could be trusted. Every air vent could be hiding their quarry. Any one of their treacherous doors could pop open and spit out a stone cold killer, armed and ready for whatever she had to throw at him.

"Settle down, Raven," she muttered to herself. "You're psyching yourself out before the fight's started." She was Raven, daughter of one of the most feared beings in existence, sorceress of Azarath, and a founding member of the Teen Titans. She wasn't about to go run and hide because some otaku with an oversized steak knife had broken in.

The bottoms of her cobalt boots rolled softly against the tile floor at a clipped pace. The confidence returned to her step and her posture, for she drew herself up straight and drew the edges of her cloak closed. Pursed lips and a smoldering gaze were the only things to escape the powerful darkness beneath her hood, just as she liked it. "Come out, coward," she challenged openly. "I hear you like to warn your victims. Is that what you did to Terra?" There was no answer. "Well, I got your message loud and clear. Now I've got a little memo of my own for you. So come on out."

Silence burned in her ears. She ignored those useless flaps on the sides of her head, and instead stretched out her ethereal senses, hoping to find him there. Again, the emptiness of their tower stared her in her face. It reminded her of why she remained in her room, where the silence and isolation remained manageable. Her soft footfalls pounded off of the lofty ceilings and barren walls. There was nothing else.

"You must think you're some principled saint," she drawled, keeping her eyes in a steady sweeping pattern. "You warn people, and then you kill them. You must get a big kick out of seeing people dance when you pull their strings. Fear makes you feel powerful." Her violet eyes narrowed with the promise of violence. "But you'll never scare me. I'm not afraid of you."

Raven couldn't take another step. She felt a pressure at her throat, and froze in the middle of planting her foot on the floor. Slowly, carefully, she eased her weight onto the ball of that foot, feeling an edge dig further into the delicate flesh beneath her chin and spying a glint of silvery light. A gentle hand grasped her shoulder and held her fast, steadying the light shake of her frame that shamed her deeply.

"I don't doubt that you do not fear me," an intimate voice whispered through her hood, snapping her narrowed eyes open. "But the question must then become, do you fear death?"

* * *

"Patience, Robin," clucked Slade from his seat atop the hood of the T-Car. His legs swung to an unheard tune as he regarded the object of his admonishment. "We haven't seen each other all these months, I know. But pace yourself. I don't intend to do anywhere for a good, long while."

With one knee on the cold concrete, Robin clutched at the scorch marks on his red tunic and gasped, ignoring the protest that burned from the deep welts with every inhalation. Slade's attack had taken him by surprise, and those electroknucklers crackling on his fists seemed to pay Robin's new invulnerability no mind. Anxious fear rolled out of the creature behind his ribs in great waves, mixed indistinguishably with the notion that a few more solid hits like the last one would be bad indeed. "You hired Bushido," gulped Robin, fighting to get back to his feet.

"Expensive, yes," Slade admitted with a shrug and a roll of his eye. "But well worth it in the end." He gripped the T-Car's wheel well and leaned forward. One could scarcely miss hearing the sinister smile his voice passed between. "Of course, the original plan was for him to kill all of you. But once I heard about these marvelous new powers you'd received, I had to witness them firsthand."

The metal bottoms of his boots scraped against the cement as Robin stood. "You almost…" He coughed into his glove, spraying crimson across its green curves. "You almost killed Terra."

"Yes. Shame, that." There was nary a sound as Slade dropped off of the hood and began to pace the length of the Car. His eye never wavered from Robin for an instant. "Bushido insisted on giving you fair warning. He seemed to take to my idea of using one of your little friends. Of course," added Slade, "I wanted him to slice open…which one is it you're so fond of?" Impish delight sparkled in his monstrous gaze. "The alien, isn't it?"

Robin howled and leapt to one side. His gloves found purchase on the smooth frame of his R-Cycle, and crushed new grips into its bulletproof armor. Without so much as a grunt, he hefted the Cycle to shoulder height and threw it like a javelin. Quick though the maneuver was, Slade sidestepped the flying bike, letting it sail instead into Cyborg's pride and joy. A gut wrenching crunch reverberated across their underground garage as the two tough armors met. The R-Cycle's nose crumpled and shattered before punching through the T-Car's door and smashing a dashboard's worth of sensitive equipment.

Slade examined the wreck, running his hand along the protruding aft section of the R-Cycle. He gave its hanging wheel a good spin. "Temper, temper, Robin. I doubt your friend would appreciate you breaking his toys. Assuming he was going to live to see this mess."

The smell of ozone overran the air, emanating from the R-Cycle's broken fuel cell as it scorched the air. Between the bike's dying hiss of loosed fluids and the throaty chuckle cascading through Slade's mask, Robin could hear a pounding, painful thud, thud, thud, rebounding inside his ears. He would take this madman apart at the seams. He would rip out his throat with his own teeth. He would…

"**SLADE!**" The one word torn from Robin's throat held a world of significance. Robin charged full-tilt at him, feet pounding, legs pumping, fists clenched and swinging with each lunge. His new strength carried him further than he ever expected with each step, making his dash somewhat clumsy, but faster than ever. An arsenal the equal of any seasoned soldier bounced, forgotten, at his waist. His fingers tensed with anticipation, longing to crush Slade's windpipe.

Just beyond Robin's reach, Slade took to the air and flipped. Still inverted, he tossed an explosive disc into the heart of the double-wreck. The R-Cycle's sputtering fuel cell consumed the low-impact blast, digested it, and came back with one of even greater magnitude. Cyborg's baby joined in, adding its own power source to the mix. Combined, the two vehicles created a gruesome blossom of fire that engulfed everything in its reach, including the hapless teen hero running headlong into its clutches.

Robin sailed back, trailing tendrils of plasma as the explosion spat him out. His spine met with the very door that had trapped him, spooning the thick, dense alloy before flopping back onto the ground. Shreds of his uniform hung off of his wiry frame as he drew up on his knees and coughed clear the superheated smoke searing his lungs. Something burned at his waist, and it was only when he ripped it off and tossed it away that he realized it was the melting remains of his utility belt.

Cast in the light of the crackling fire, Slade appeared even more the monster Robin knew him to be. A pair of hands fought their way over the roar of the flames with a slow, steady applause. "Now I am impressed," said Slade. "That would have killed a normal man. I can see my time hasn't been wasted after all." A crimson spark snapped from his knucklers each time his hands came together.

A surge of adrenaline drove Robin's fingertips into the concrete floor. He dug them in as deep as they would go and then bucked back with a gritty groan. The floor cracked, then gave, relinquishing a large and misshapen chunk of processed stone. Robin pushed off with one foot, rising and spinning, and let the rubble fly.

The casual stride of Slade's feet never once broke step. Instead, he leaned forward, ducking beneath the desperate attack with his hands clasped behind his back. The concrete shattered behind him, spreading out into uneven gravel that coated the distance to Cyborg's workbench. The flickering firelight in Slade's eye twisted with amusement. "Throwing clumsy elements of your surroundings in lieu of strategy or skill? Really, Robin," he admonished the teen, coming to within a few yards' distance, "Why don't we simply paint a large, red 'S' on your chest and ship you off to Metropolis?"

Robin shuffled forward with a backhand that could have decapitated Slade, but it never landed. The miss left Robin wide open, allowing Slade all the time in the world to plant his electroknucklers into Robin's stomach. Wind whistled in his ears as Robin sailed back. Though the impact of Slade's fists never even registered, Robin nevertheless felt sharp flames spread through his chest. Muscles screamed and shuddered, and his symbiotic alien howled in silent reprisal. All this power, and he hadn't landed a single blow against Slade? Unacceptable.

His breath left him in a rush as he bounced to a halt, inches from the briny access pool leading beneath their island. The stingray lines of their T-Sub hung above him, angled down for a rapid launch along guide railings into murky ocean depths. As he tried to sit up, a pair of hands grabbed what remained of his tunic and dragged him into the air. Robin saw a trio of the two-toned masks rotating counterclockwise, each with a furious eye attached burning deep into his face.

With knucklers shooting random charges into his skin, it was all Robin could do to make Slade's words out above the crescendo of agony. "I take it back," Slade told him, "I am disappointed in you, child. I had hoped your chance fortune would make you an actual threat. Instead," he lamented with an unseen sneer, "You've become just another talentless metahuman. How pathetic."

The world spun as Slade slackened his electrocutioner's grip. Robin felt another impact as he struck cold, salty water. A sharp, instinctive gasp drew the stuff into his lungs, where it sat, most unwelcome, until Robin bobbed back up to the surface. He gagged the water out of his lungs, vomiting brine and bile until his body considered itself rid of the offending liquids.

Then a crackling disc struck the water, and his vision went red. So great was the pain, like liquid fire pumping through his body, that Robin didn't notice Slade destroying the chocks on the T-Sub until the great orange vessel dropped on top of his head and exploded.

* * *

"You can scream if you like," Bushido offered in her ear. "I won't mind."

Raven stiffened, trying to control the tremble in her legs as she felt the razor edge of his blade press deeper into the soft flesh of her neck. There had been no sound, not even a wayward breath of effort, to warn her of Bushido's approach. She could sense no stray emotions spilling off of his psyche, only a cold, purposeful determination that her empathic ear had mistook for an echo of her own focus. Her meditative incantation rolled through her head as she gathered her soul-self for a counterassault. "You have three seconds to let me go," she said, feeling her words vibrate against the katana.

A small sliver of amusement tickled her empathy. Raven couldn't help but feel impressed at his skill; as he spoke, his weapon didn't twitch so much as a centimeter. "I suppose your famed telekinesis will stop my blade. No doubt you'll tear it from my very hands and turn it against me. Well," he offered, "Don't let me keep you."

His sneering jest pooled bitterly in Raven's ears, but she banished her irritation. "Azarath, Metrion, Zintho…"

Something wasn't right. Raven watched from the corner of her eye as her obsidian power ensnared his katana. But as she prepared to wrench it from his grasp, she felt another force contest her mystic grip. A thousand voices chorused in harmony, denying her and belittling her and jeering her and forcing her away with a single thought. Her soul self trickled off of the katana and vanished back into the oblivion from whence it came, leaving Raven at the mercy of Bushido and his blade.

"You see? My ancestors protect me from your bewitchery." There was an instructive quality to the voice murmuring to her. Moments from her murder, Raven could still sense no malice in him. The katana's pressure increased just a fraction, drawing a small welt of black blood from Raven's skin. "Decapitation is a tried and true method of killing demons, correct? I receive so few opportunities to pit myself against your kind."

"Are you going to kill me," Raven grunted, "Or are you trying to bore me to death?"

"My apologies," Bushido said. "I have a natural flair for dramatics, or so I am told."

"Put the sword down." The feral snarl, barely recognizable as speech, rattled from the back of Beast Boy's throat. He stood to one side of the victim and victor with teeth bared and hands raised like claws, crouched low, coiled and ready to pounce. "Now," he barked.

Bushido didn't budge. "Do not move," he said without any trace of his former, casual joviality. "Stay where you are or she dies."

"You'll be dog meat before she hits the ground," promised Beast Boy.

"You are not that fast."

"I've got a whole world of animals right her," he snapped back. "All I have to do is pick which one is gonna kick your ass." Never removing his eyes from Bushido, he said to Raven, "See? This is why I didn't want to split up."

Raven retorted, "Hindsight is so clear, isn't it?"

"Oh, that is so like you!" he said in a huff. "You're about to die, and you can't even admit you were wrong."

"I wasn't a liar in life," Raven said coolly. "I don't see why I should change that in my death to appease your ego."

"You are so full of it!"

"Excuse me," interjected Bushido as politely as he could, "But can we return to our life and death situation?"

"Sorry," said the Titans.

The trio lapsed into uneasy silence. Raven felt beads of sweat welling up on her brow. She swallowed, pressing her throat further onto the blade by accident and renewing the trickle of blood it drew. Beast Boy's rage returned at the sight of the leaking demonic broth. His legs flexed, carrying him left and right in a light anticipatory bounce. Nostrils flaring, he looked the part of the jungle cat waiting to pounce from the underbrush. It was a side of him Raven had never seen, or even imagined.

Bushido broke the quiet when his curiosity could no longer be contained. As a sign of good faith, he lessened the pressure on Raven's throat, but not enough to convince her to try and bolt. His head he tilted quizzically around the side of her hood to examine Beast Boy with greater scrutiny. "How did you arrive? I did not hear your approach."

"Pretty hard to hear a dust mite riding the air conditioning currents," Beast Boy explained.

"Clever." Genuine admiration fueled Bushido's new smile. "Slade's Apprentice made mention of your unpredictability. I can see now this quality was grossly underestimated." They stood a moment more, watching one another with their prize remaining still and quiet. "So, what shall we do to solve our predicament?"

"You could put the sword down and let me beat the sushi out of you," Beast Boy supplied.

A small chuckle buffeted the back of Raven's hood. "Your witless rejoinder aside," he told Beast Boy, "It will be an honor to defeat you."

"Honor…" A rare, powerful moment of inspiration grabbed Beast Boy by the nose hairs and yanked him headlong into an idea. Tricky, desperate, and stupid all seemed to aptly describe the plan, but he couldn't count on another idea coming to him then or any time soon after. Before he could overthink his strategy (never a real threat for Beast Boy anyway), he blurted, "I challenge you to a duel."

Both Raven and Bushido said, "A what?" in unison.

Sweating, Beast Boy repeated, "A duel. Two honorable guys, duking it out without slitting anyone's throat. No weapons," he added, eyeballing the katana. "I don't want to wind up gargling a sword either." His hands dropped to his side to punctuate his sincerity.

Raven choked down her shock and concern for their lives with a biting remark. "This has to be the dumbest thing you've ever tried, Beast Boy."

"I'm inclined to agree with your comrade," remarked Bushido. "A duel without weapons against a one-man animal kingdom is a poor choice from my perspective."

Beast Boy shook his head. "No morphing. Like I said, just two guys fighting until one quits."

"Beast Boy, get out of here." The indifferent snarl fought to keep Raven's real hidden. "Find the others and go. Throwing your life away won't do anyone any good." Beast Boy remained still, staring down Bushido with uncharacteristic focus. "For once in your life, just listen to me. Go!"

The subtle chuckle infesting Bushido's speech worsened, becoming a light, unfettered laugh that shook his shoulders. "You are full of surprises, aren't you, Mister Logan? Very well. What shall the stakes of our bout be?"

"If I win, you leave me and my friends alone. Everyone goes home alive."

Bushido smirked at this, indulging in a private joke. "And if I win?"

"Then you kill me." Beast Boy shrugged. His grassy eyes darted to Raven's upturned, tensed face. Their gazes locked a moment, and Beast Boy was struck by the staggering emotion she tried to hide. Though her eyes were hard and cold, his sharp gaze caught the subtle tilt of her brow that begged him to save himself. The air swam with her panic, undetectable by normal senses but overpowering to his feral snout. Beneath Raven's fearful scent, he perceived Bushido's lingering uncertainty, so he added, "And you can kill Raven, too."

"Beast Boy!" Raven barked.

"No fuss," continued the changeling, "No muss." He spread his arms out, palms up, in a broad shrug. "Unless you think I'm too much man to handle. In that case, it's totally okay to wuss out like a major wussy wussbag who rocks at wussing."

Bushido's smile flitted over Raven's shoulder, almost lost in the torrential storm of anger pouring out of her features. But the smile didn't give any indication either way of what he would do. For thirty seconds that lasted an eternity, Bushido stood in absolute silence, considering the offer with that cheshire grin of his. He kept count of the time by way of the explosions that rattled in his chest.

The silvery blade flashed like lightning. For half of a pounding heartbeat, Beast Boy feared he had failed, that Raven's blood would spill over the floor. There was no new river of blood, though, left in the katana's wake. Bushido's ancestral sword rotated at the hilt. A quick jab brought the hilt crashing across the back of her skull. Raven's acidic glare rolled back into its sockets. Bushido caught her around the waist and lowered her to the floor with tender care. His face shone at Beast Boy all throughout, as if daring the Titan to challenge his handling of Raven. Beast Boy bristled, but said nothing.

"I accept," he informed his target mere seconds before the space between them blew up.

* * *

Robin grasped the twisted remains of a ladder and hauled himself out of the boiling seawater one hand at a time. The ringing in his ears played him up the metal framework and to the edge of the crumbling concrete. He flopped onto the ground and secreted steaming water like it was going out of style. The burning remains of the T-Sub burbled behind him as they slipped beneath the surface of the water, never to rise again.

A pair of boots scraped the concrete in front of Robin's face. "You are quite resilient. I must admit, I would give up if my submarine exploded on top of my head." The boots toed Robin's cheek. "But then, you always were a stubborn one."

"Slade." Despite the overwhelming trauma the fight had pressed upon him, Robin could feel his faculties returning. The question of whether or not he could recover fast enough weighted heavily on his mind as he felt those rough electrocutioner's hands grasp the corpse of his Kevlar tunic and haul him into the air. "You bastard…"

"Shh," Slade shushed him. "Don't ruin this for me. All the time I've spent, all the resources I've invested, all the setbacks I've suffered; don't you think I've earned the right to enjoy this?" A twist of his grip pressed his electroknucklers into Robin's chest, drawing a delicious scream out of the Teen Wonder."

When the torment ceased, Robin forced his masked eyes to focus back on Slade's split face. "You're insane," he sneered. If he could only keep Slade talking long enough, just a few more minutes. He could feel his strength coming back to him, but it just wasn't enough yet, not even sufficient to break Slade's grip. "No," he amended in a sudden burst of inspiration, "You're pathetic. You're so afraid of the Big Leagues that all you can do is poke at a couple of kids living inside a giant letter."

Slade's eye narrowed. "Mind your tone," he growled.

Robin forced a smile on his cracking lips. "Tell me the truth," he said with a hollow laugh, "Do you wet yourself at the thought of the Justice League finally considering you a serious threat?" He laughed again, sending flecks of spit splattering onto Slade's faceplate. "Maybe you could even rate Booster Gold or Wildcat. But I doubt it."

"Be quiet," Slade growled, and twisted another charge into Robin's laughing chest.

Once his spasmodic twitching ceased, Robin mustered a great guffaw and threw it into Slade's face. The electric shocks were slowing his recovery down, but a little more taunting would bring him back to battle-readiness. "Other guys do this for money or power," he rasped. "But you? You're the supervillain version of the guy who lures kids into his van over the internet." He punctuated this realization with more empty laughter.

Then Robin suffered for his own success. Slade twisted his shoulders and threw the Titan onto the floor with everything he had, knocking the wind right out of Robin. "I was going to be civil about this," he snarled, and twisted a control hidden inside his palm. The glowing power in his knucklers amplified to blinding levels. "I hadn't planned on using these at full power. I even considered letting you live, letting you reclaim your rightful place at my side. But time and again..." He brought his fist down into Robin's heaving chest, ripping a blood-curdling scream out of the teen. "Time and again," he hissed, "You prove the need for your annihilation."

Robin could only scream. He couldn't see, couldn't feel, save for the arcing death pouring into his body. The creature inside of him swelled with panic. Its fear begged him to stop the torture, to fight, to win. Nothing would please Robin more, but his limbs danced at Slade's behest, not his, and refused to listen to his desperate commands. His throat became raw as the edges of his vision turned red. The smell of burning meat dominated his sinuses.

"I hope I find your little alien girl first," Slade confessed in a whisper that whistled through the grill of his mask and into Robin's ear, "Before Bushido gets to her." His knuckles dug deeper into the Teen Wonder's smoldering flesh, and he relished the fatal scream that resulted. "For every insult you've given me, I'll return each one tenfold into that pretty little face of hers. Every last iota of trouble, every fleeting irritation you've caused me will be repaid out of her flesh. I will—"

Scarlet light enveloped Robin's hands, burning brighter and hotter than Slade's electroknucklers. The energy leapt from Robin's fingertips and slammed into Slade's armored harness, sending a shockwave through the villain's chest as the metallic weave buckled and melted. Slade flew into the air along the energy's arc, then sprawled back onto the floor with a grunt.

It took Slade a moment to reclaim the wind that had fled him at the powerful blast. No stranger to pain, he noticed the burning of his own flesh with an academic cant, retracing the last few seconds' activities that had altered the status quo of their fight. "This is unexpected," he concluded, sitting up with a slight grunt.

The glow around his hands remained as Robin pressed them against the floor and pushed up to his knees. Indentations in the shape of his fingertips lingered in the concrete when he lifted them away. His equilibrium returned to him in leaps and bounds, enough so to make standing possible again. But his head still swam with confusion as he examined the slight enveloping his fists. He felt its warmth, but it did not burn him as it clearly did Slade's smoldering armor. Inside him, the symbiote sang with delight at this new evolution, but broadcasted to its host a livid reminder of what he should be doing with it.

Slade rolled back over his shoulder and crouched low to the ground. "It doesn't matter how many powers you acquire," he yowled. "I will always be your master!" An elecrodisc snapped from the ends of his fingers, burning a crimson path through the air.

Instinct jumped in to pick up the slack left by Robin's confusion. His hand curved around the energies that pooled into his palm from some inner reserve. Soon he grasped a ball of shimmering light and, without thinking, he hurled the orb like a baseball. Crimson and scarlet met in midair, annihilating each other in a storm of thunderous, blinding fury. Before the light had faded, Robin started repeating the unfamiliar act, raining bolts of molten force into his enemy's shocked expression.

Slade strafed past the hail of deadly light, already rethinking his strategy. He didn't get long to muse, though, because Robin pressed his attack with unmatchable ferocity. The Titan charged opposite Slade, flanking him as the villain sought to do the same. The two twisted in a circular dance, Robin hurling his energized orbs, and Slade dodging them. Their loop grew smaller until the two met hand-to-hand. Robin set his luminous fists against Slade's knucklers, feeling their brutal bite wrack his body again.

"What do you say now, boy?" demanded Slade. Insane rage shook his narrowed eye as Robin writhed in his grasp. "Where are your quips now? Where is all that confident bantering of yours? I don't hear any of that now."

With a burst of scarlet, Robin's energies overpowered those of Slade's devices, overloading them as the Titan's overwhelming strength crumpled their delicate electronics. Slade snarled as Robin's scorching grip pressed into his skillful hands with the sickening smell of cooking flesh. A melted boot crashed into his chest with the face of a battering ram, releasing him from the grips but slamming him into a wall in exchange. More of Robin's energy orbs barreled into his torso, keeping him aloft against the wall. After they ceased, Slade pitched forward and collapsed face first into the floor.

"You blackmail me," snapped Robin, "Threaten my friends, hire flunky after flunky, and concoct your twisted little schemes, and you still don't get it." Robin's voice grew stronger with every word. He straightened his posture and held his fist at his sides. Red energy still trailed in his hands' wake, anticipating any fight still left in Slade. "You won't beat me. You won't beat my friends. As hard as you try, you'll never beat the Titans. I won't let you."

Slade resumed standing with noticeable effort. "No, Robin," he grunted, clutching at the slagged craters in his armor. "It is you who misunderstands. Your friends will die. Your team will fail. Your efforts will be in vain, and you will realize all this as you kneel before me!" Upon shouting his last word, Slade threw an oblong device into the air. It detonated, bathing the Vehicle Bay in a tidal wave of white light for a split second. Once the spots ceased their frolic in Robin's vision, he bore witness to the empty space where Slade had been. No trace of him remained.

The glowing of his hands persisted as he brought them to his face. Vindication of Doctor Brown's prior, ambiguous warning of his continued mutation stared back at him through the bloody light. Only a concentrated effort banished the energies, though Robin's gaze lingered still. "Bring it on, Slade," he uttered, wiggling his again-unfamiliar digits (for who knew what further miracles they waited to reveal?). "I'll be ready."

An unwanted voice made silent addendum to his bold statement: _I just hope it will be enough._

* * *

Beast Boy rode a concussive sapphire wave back, morphing into a sparrow to better surf the sonic energy. Across from him, Bushido's blade had already cleared its sheath, and projected a funky blue barrier that slurped the buffeting energy up and left its wielder unharmed. Despite this, the samurai wore a look of vile contempt aimed in Beast Boy's direction. The expression flashed just as quickly in the direction of the attack's source, where it found…"Cyborg!"

The Titan filled the hallway with his massive frame. He kept his sonic cannon leveled at Bushido with the solidarity of a mountain. His concentration, already impressive, became nothing short of miraculous when one considered the polished metal hilt of a dagger protruding from his left eye.

"Move," he warned Bushido, "And I'll liquefy your brain from the inside out." The focal amplifier at his cannon's end tripled its illumination to support his claim. "I have enough decibel power in this thing to make KISS sound like Kidz Bop."

Upon hearing this, Beast Boy decided to put some distance between himself and Bushido. As much as he and his friends joked about its feeble capacity, he enjoyed having his brain. "Cy," he said, "Are you okay?"

Cyborg gave his friend a look that made it clear Beast Boy could not have asked a stupider question. "He jammed a knife into my brain," growled Cyborg. "How do you think I'm doing?"

"And yet, you live." Bushido sounded less than pleased as his mystical shield retracted back into the tip of his blade. He listened with half an ear to the protestant cries of his ancestors at this outrageous injustice. Their scathing criticism he bore with some chagrin. Of the many people he had slain in his tenure as the Bushido, only three had risen up again, and the other two were through magic or happenstance. This was the first to result from a lack of preparation.

"When my CPU crashed, it took a few minutes for my systems to reroute control to my backup processors." A grimace soured Cyborg's chocolate complexion. "I always told my dad that I thought having a second brain in my chest cavity was a dumb idea. I guess you proved me wrong." He shifted his sonic cannon, resting its sights squarely on Bushido's nose. "BB, hit 'em hard and fast. He's tough, but—"

"No." Beast Boy placed himself in front of the cannon's aperture. A black scowl darkened his features. "We're in the middle of something here."

Cyborg brushed the changeling aside with his cannon. "Quit foolin' around, Beast Boy, this is serious."

Before Cyborg could take another step, he found a green gorilla towering over his path. The great beast bellowed from behind slavering canine teeth as it shoved him back the way he had come. "So am I," Beast Boy said upon shifting back to his human form. "This is my fight, so back off." The uncharacteristic snarl silenced Cyborg's rising protest and stole his breath. Then he caught sight of the nigh-imperceptible twitch in Beast Boy's lips, and the flutter of his left eye. "You got it?" Beast Boy added with hammy menace.

"I got it," Cyborg nodded once, and stepped away. His sonic cannon morphed back into his arm, but his muscles remained tensed and ready.

Bushido smiled. His callous foot rolled the insensate Raven off to one side, where she would remain safe and out of the way. Beast Boy's eyes flashed at the heap of blue robes with concern. For her sake, he hoped this would work. "You honor your word," Bushido praised him.

"Now hows about you honor yours?" A gray glove jabbed at the hilt on Bushido's waist. "Lose the sword."

A look of brief hesitation sparked in Bushido's features before he untied the sheath and laid his ancestors onto the floor with a lover's care. "Honorable, but not foolish," he said with continued approval. "I must say, Logan, you are a refreshing change. In the past, I've found metahumans to be a sneaky, underhanded breed."

Beast Boy sniffed. "That's big talk coming from a ninja." He began circling left, crossing one leg in front of the other to keep his sights square on his opponent. His hands hung in a pattern that loosely resembled some of the simpler Kung Fu he had seen Robin do. Wisely, he chose to not try mimicking that bizarre hooting noise the Teen Wonder made as well.

Shadow crept into Bushido's whimsy. "I am no ninja, my emerald aggressor. I am a samurai, and in keeping with my code, I have given you ample warning to prepare for my coming." He adopted Beast Boy's circular path, maintaining the distance between them. "And because you demonstrate a modicum of nobility unusual to your kind, I shall continue to do so. I will tell you every move I will employ to defeat you."

"Is that a fact." Their slow circle continued, the sequel to their earlier standoff. Beast Boy's heart pounded in his ears. He had to struggle to hear Bushido's pompous play-by-play.

"First," he said, "I will feint in with a backfist strike. You will expect this, but because you do not trust me, you will fall for it anyway, and leave yourself open to my side kick. Your right knee will suffer for your ill preparation, and shatter, dropping you." His imagery returned the joy to the fight for Bushido. "Once you lay in helpless agony, it will be a simple matter to break your neck."

"And after you kill me…what?" Beast Boy stopped and let his guard drop. They now stood on opposite sides from where they had started. His hands fell to his hips as his sarcasm leapt to strike. "Lunch?"

That tiny, damnable chuckle floated from Bushido's throat. "Why, I claim my prize, of course." He glanced back at Raven and imagined the thrill of her soul howling in release as he cut her head from her body. Other demons that died at his hands gave such a marvelous scream, and the sulfurous blast of light that accompanied their deaths rivaled the aurora borealis. He could hardly wait. "Then, I imagine I must deal with your walking cadaver friend." His tilted head indicated the glowering Cyborg standing at their fight's perimeter.

"Wow…" drawled Beast Boy.

"Being faced with one's mortality and its imminent cessation is a powerful experience," Bushido agreed.

The Titan shrugged. "No," he said, "I actually meant, 'Wow, you're such a douche bag.'" He threw himself up and over, tossing his wiry body into a flip that carried him back to where Bushido's precious sword rested on the floor. As he landed in a crouch, his stubby fingers curled around the smooth lines of the katana sheath. "Cy, catch!" He tossed the blade through the air before Bushido knew what his nemesis was up to. The assassin could only watch helplessly as his ancestors were snatched up by Cyborg's super strong hands.

"NO!" sobbed Bushido. His ancestors screamed in a thousand panicked voices as Cyborg grasped them by the hilt and yanked them from their sheath. They begged Bushido to rescue them from the filthy metahuman's clutches. "Please," he fell to his knees, "Give them back to me."

Now it was Cyborg's turn to chuckle. The empty sheath in his off hand crumpled like an empty paper cup before tossed it aside and took up the sword in both hands. "I'll bet you've got all kinds of tricks to take me down without this pig sticker, don't you?" Bushido's katana creaked as he applied a light pressure to either end, meaning to bow the ancient metal out. "But I wonder how many of them are fast enough to stop me from snapping it in half."

The fight had fled Bushido the instant his precious blade became endangered. He knew Cyborg was right; there was no way he could get to the sword before it broke in the man/machine's metal grasp. His shuffling knees failed him as he neared Cyborg, and he collapsed at the Titan's feet, clinging to his boot-like feet. "Please," he begged, "Do not harm it."

"You were gonna kill us." Beast Boy strode over to Raven, completely turning his back on Bushido. The sorceress began to stir with a moan, rising like a cobalt ghost into a vaguely human shape. He helped her rise, pulling back her hood to check the lump on the back of her head. Loathe though Raven was to let anyone touch her, the spinning room refused to let her stand on her own without help, and so she tolerated his administrations. Beast Boy's gentle hand lifted her chin so he could examine her neck. "You almost killed Raven."

"It was never personal," insisted a desperate Bushido. "I swear, it is my job."

The black-stained line on Raven's throat disgusted Beast Boy. He circled his arm around her waist to keep her steady and turned back to glare at Bushido. "Killing people seems pretty personal to me, dude." Raising his glare, his eyes joined with Cyborg's. "Cy, snap that toothpick."

The metal creaked again. His ancestors' wails became deafening, begging Bushido to save them. Their pain became his, and he clutched at his chest. Tears squeezed out of his closed eyes as he sobbed, "Please, no. If you break my blade, you murder countless souls."

The Titans didn't understand what he was talking about, and none of them particularly cared. "Say uncle," Beast Boy demanded.

"Uncle," wept Bushido, "Uncle." The voices cried out, but he could do nothing. Cyborg's grip was too strong for him to break, and he could never free his ancestors fast enough.

"You lose the fight," Beast Boy told him in no uncertain terms. "Your little contract is over. Get out of my house." He turned away, leading Raven away from the scene. She still hadn't spoke, but a look of silent gratitude escaped the folds of her hood. Somewhere within that gratitude was the promise that they would speak about his offering her life up to an assassin, but Beast Boy enjoyed the brief approval from Raven nonetheless. "Give him his sword and let him go."

"B, you can't be serious," Cyborg grunted. His pressure on the sword lessened, but he kept it firm in his grasp to mollify his would-be killer at his feet. "We should take him in and—"

Beast Boy stopped. "We made a deal, Cyborg. Besides…" He and Raven looked back at the weeping assassin with contempt. Beast Boy spat, "He doesn't look like much of a Big Bad to me."

His two teammates rounded the corner, leaving Cyborg alone with the teen whose knife still rested in the debris of his primary brain. Cyborg knelt down, looming over Bushido. He waved the assassin's sword over his head. "If it was up to me, you'd be rotting in a jail cell." The sword lifted high in his grasp, its point angled down. "Or worse."

Bushido flinched as his ancestors shattered the tile in front of his helpless face. Their screams silenced at once, becoming a constant stream of shrieking insults. He was worthless. He was nothing. He wasn't worthy of carrying the name of Bushido. What a pathetic whelp. Beaten by a childish metahuman. Pathetic. Pathetic.

Cyborg rose from the quivering blade and its blubbering owner as the sniffling subsided. "I guess you're lucky," he told Bushido. "Beast Boy's a much nicer guy than I am. Now get the hell out." And with that, he walked away, knowing full well Bushido wouldn't be there when he returned. With any luck, they would never see him again.

* * *

_The walls of her stone dome blotted out the sunlight, leaving them in total darkness. Earthen smells swamped the tiny bubble, where she heard another person scrambling against the blackened walls. With a snap, a bright flare demolished their sightlessness and revealed a white-clad figure trapped within the claustrophobic confines with her._

_"We must work quickly, Apprentice," Bushido whispered to her. He pounded against the interior of her bubble to simulate the sounds of a great struggle within. Already, they heard the Titans pounding back on the outside. It was all the Apprentice could do to maintain her structure against two meaty fists (probably Beast Boy's). "Slade does not wish you harmed in the coming storm, and I must deliver my warning to the Titans."_

_The Apprentice scowled, shielding her eyes against Bushido's blinding flare. "I know what to do." She hesitated a second. "You're sure you can—"_

_"My blade is swift and precise," he assured her. "I can avoid hitting anything vital."_

_She drew in a deep breath, and exhaled. "Do it."_

_The sword flashed in the burning magnesium, moving so swiftly it became a blur. The Apprentice's stomach tore open at its touch, and a white-hot snake of fire wormed its way into her stomach. She had no more need for the acting that had masked her subterfuge during her tenure with the Titans, for the pain was both real and intense enough to draw from her a piercing shriek the likes of which had never before terrorized her throat. Such pain she couldn't bear, even as the sword dug deeper, deeper, tearing her skin and—_

Terra sat up from her covered biobed with a scream. Her hands flew to her stomach and her eyes stretched at their edges as she desperately sucked in cool, crisp air to quell the fire in her belly. As her scream trailed off, another just like it howled from beside her bed from a green shape that snapped back at her violent awakening. The second scream drew a third from her, this one out of fright as her green nurse tilted back and fell along with his chair. His scream cut off with a grunt as the back of his head smacked into the carpeted floor.

"Beast Boy," she huffed, still clutching her stomach. The pain was nowhere near as badly as in her nightmare, but a dull ache persisted between her abdominals. She watched her friend pull himself up with a groan and straighten his seat, reassuming watch over her. "What are you doing?"

"I was just…I just…" His eyes darted back and forth as his fleeing instincts kicked in. After a few more seconds of blathering, he managed, "I wanted to see you. I wanted to be here when you woke up."

"Oh." What a sweet gesture. It brought a grin to her face as she said as much. "So, what'd I miss?" Then her features darkened. "Is everyone—"

He rested a hand on her shoulder, easing her back down against the cool, soft surface of the biobed. "Relax," he assured her, "Everyone's fine. Cyborg needed a new brain, but S.T.A.R. Labs'll have one here in a week or two. Bushido's gone. Turns out he was working for Slade."

Beast Boy's dark revelation inspired the same feeling inside of her. Everyone was still alive. "That's great," she said. A heavy fatigue settled into her words and onto her shoulders, making it hard to fight his hand as it eased her down to her sickbed. "Really great."

"Not as great as your being awake," Beast Boy confessed nervously. His hand rested on the back of his neck, rubbing to keep its shaking to a minimum as he laughed away his apprehension. "I, uh…I was really worried after Bushido stabbed you. I thought I wouldn't get to…" Terra's interest rose again as he looked away, trailing off. She sat up again, pulling at the blanket to swing her legs around. Beast Boy's staying hand kept her in place once more. "Maybe you shouldn't get up."

"But I feel a lot better." It was a partial lie, as each movement still tore at her delicate stomach and the pink flesh sealed together with bailing wire and luck. His hand still kept her on the bed. "Why can't I get up?"

His green face darkened with a blush. "Because you're wearing a hospital gown," he pointed out. "They aren't really known for their, ah, coverage."

Terra wriggled her bottom, feeling her bare skin drag against the biobed's leathery surface through the backless garment. Looking down, she saw the powdery blue fabric covering her chest where her Titan uniform had been, and immediately laid back down without any further insistence from Beast Boy. Her own blush turned her face into a beacon of red embarrassment.

A throat cleared behind the two. Turning, Terra and Beast Boy saw Raven standing in the doorway to the Medical Bay. The sorceress lowered her fist from her lips and looked pointedly at the two teens. A clipboard rested in the crook of her elbow, waiting for the latest update on Terra's condition. "Terra needs a once-over and at least another night of rest here."

"Aw, can't I stay?" pleaded Beast Boy.

Raven seemed adamant about the subject. "Take a hike."

"Right." It had been worth a shot. Beast Boy turned back to Terra, taking her hand in his and giving it a squeeze. "Once again, really glad you're okay," he said again. The dark blush in his cheeks lingered even as he turned to go. He ignored Raven's rude sniff as he passed, too busy trying to break his face with an enormous smile. As he reached the door, Beast Boy stopped and turned around. "Hey, Terra?" At her questioning glance, he blurted out, "You wanna catch a movie this weekend? Y'know, it's cool if you're not feeling up to it, but I thought…"

Terra kept him waiting a moment with a thoughtful glance and a rub of her belly. "Dunno," she mused, watching his poorly-veiled disappointment. "My stomach hurts pretty bad. But," she added quickly, "I bet popcorn would make it feel a lot better."

Beast Boy managed a squeak and a nod before scrambling out of the room, tripping over his own feet as the doors swooshed shut behind him. The instant they closed, the girls heard a whoop filter through the armored alloy. It reinforced the smile on Terra's face, but soured Raven's expression something fierce. "Popcorn is hardly proper medication for a stomach injury," the sorceress said snidely.

"Oh, act your age," snorted Terra. She allowed Raven access to the readout monitor above her head, and laid back and folded her hands over her stomach. Serene contentment settled over her face, even when Raven lifted her arms and pressed into her stomach with icy fingers. The pain spiked and then lessened as radiant black trickled from Raven's palms and through Terra's hospital gown. Her tensed abdominals relaxed when a light euphoria tickled her extremities and soothed her to the core. "Guys and girls are supposed to flirt. It's what we do, in case you haven't noticed."

"I have, and that's the problem." Her pen scribbled a few notes onto the clipboard. She used the writing surface to hide her face and its grimace. Bad enough that Beast Boy knew, which probably meant everyone else would in a few more minutes. "Personally, I think you could do better if you took a walk down the block at midnight. With your eyes closed."

Terra waited a moment, letting Raven's cruel comment simmer in the air between them. The geokinetic wore a look of sad confusion that cocked Raven's eyebrow with curiosity. Finally, Raven let her clipboard drop (though not until the pain was well and gone) and returned Terra's look with one of challenge. "I don't mind it so much when you're hard on me," Terra said. "I'm the new girl, and I understand why you have to hate new people." Her head tilted as her sorrow grew. "But I can't figure out why you lean so hard on Beast Boy, especially when it comes to me."

"I just call them like I see them," Raven commented. She gathered her cloak around her, tucking the clipboard out of sight, and buried her face back in the shadows of her hood. The door was only a few steps away, and she tried for a quick escape before the inevitable reply came.

"No." Terra didn't disappoint her. "You don't. You go out of your way to bring him down." Raven's steps trailed off to nothing as she waited for Terra to finish. "I know you don't hate him. Beast Boy wouldn't stand a chance if you did. So what's your problem?"

Raven remained silent. After a full minute without words or movement, Terra began to shift nervously about. "The problem is both of you," she said. "You dance around, feinting at each other, teasing each other, and screwing around when you should just be together." Terra sat up to listen closely as Raven turned around. For the first time since their first meeting, Terra knew she was seeing Raven as honest as the half-demon would ever be. Her indigo eyes shook with glistening misery, a complete one-eighty from the scorn Terra usually received. "Just give it up and go to him."

She tried to leave again, but Terra stopped her with another question. "Why does this bother you so much?"

This time the nervous shuffling belonged to Raven. She turned again. The indifferent mask had returned, but Raven's words held a quiver of truth to them. "I'll never have what you have. Never. I can never love, and I can never be loved. So seeing someone else purposely deny herself something that…wonderful…" Raven choked on the word, and had to look away. "It doesn't sit well with me." She turned back to the door, resuming her escape. "So quit screwing around."

"You're wrong," Terra called. Raven paused one last time between open doors, though she did not look back. Whatever schmaltzy drivel about to dribble from Terra's lips wasn't worth the effort. "You are loved."

Raven hated being right sometimes. "Whatever," she grunted, and left Terra to wallow in her guilty distress.

* * *

Once more, Bushido approached the circle of light amidst the mausoleum of gears and chains. His approach wasn't shrouded at all this time. He walked with heavy steps, which echoed mockingly off of the unseen ceilings somewhere high above. Pale, weary horror haunted his features beneath a thin sheen of sweat as the spillover light from Slade's throne trickled over him. His employer sat on that elevated seat with steepled fingers, nearly identical to the image Bushido recalled from their first meeting. The only differences were the melted craters marring his armored harness, and the dull look in his single eye.

"Honorable Slade," Bushido began, kneeling down on one knee and bowing his head. "I ask for your forgiveness as I come to you in defeat. My honor demands that I abandon my contract."

Slade barely grunted at Bushido's entrance. His heartfelt regret received even less attention, though Slade's eye did point in the assassin's general direction. "Your honor?"

He kept his eyes glued to the featureless floor, gritting his teeth. "I would prefer not to discuss it. Sufficed to say, I will return your fee along with a generous gratuity, and my most humble apologies. I have failed." He stopped, rolling the words around in his mouth. They left a repulsive flavor that he thought might never leave him. "I have failed," he said again and almost vomited because of it. That notion made him feel worse than the rumors he had heard of Slade's reaction to those who failed him. "I…"

"You failed," Slade said offhand. "Yes, I heard you." His fingers tapped against one another as he considered his new hire a moment more. "Please keep your retainer. For your troubles."

"I…"

"You may go now," Slade said. His chair pivoted away from Bushido, delivering the coldest shoulder the teen had ever felt. Somewhere in the darkness beyond, an enormous screen, fit more for a movie theater than this lair, lit up with an image of the Titans' colorfully clad leader. Several more images of Robin in various places, in various poses, slid atop one another. "I trust you can show yourself out," Slade called out.

Bushido stood and turned. Every step he took pounded the vile word into his mind. Failure. Failure. Failure. And between each step brought Beast Boy's words back to him. _'He doesn't look like much of a Big Bad to me.'_ But he wasn't a Big Bad. Was he? He was a warrior. He was the Bushido.

And he failed.

"Help me, ancestors," he pleaded as the darkness of Slade's lair swallowed him whole. "Please, I need your guidance now more than ever. Tell me, what must my path be? How may I absolve myself of this failure? What path must I take? Please, tell me. Whatever you command, I shall do."

But Bushido found no answers in his deadened sword or the pitch blackness. His ancestors refused to speak, and his soul remained adrift in a sea of confusion. For a fifteen year old who had never known true family or friendship since his master's death years ago, Bushido had never felt so alone in his entire life.

* * *

The doors parted for Cyborg with obedient expediency, a sight for which he was uncannily grateful. He was in no mood for doors to deny him entry to any part of the Tower ever again. The new lens of his replaced optical sensor clinked at his touch, filling his vision with the tip of his finger. The components behind it might not be repaired yet, but at least he could see properly again. He would need the aid of Doctor Brown and her miracle workers at S.T.A.R. Labs to completely fix the damage to his brain.

In the meantime, he had a task even more unpleasant before him, and remembered this as he entered their training room. Its two occupants waved in greeting before returning to their activities.

"Okay, Kory," Robin called to his partner up in the air, "Pull!"

Starfire nodded. Her hands powered up with her metabolized solar energy as she hurtled a trio of starbolts straight at Robin with a war cry at each toss. They didn't get halfway to Robin before the Teen Wonder had charged up his own shots. He mimicked Starfire's movements, tossing his red-tinged balls of light into hers. The two energies met and eliminated each other with a thunderclap and a bright flash. Two more streaked at Robin, and again he kept them at bay with his new power.

"Marvelous, Robin!" Starfire sang, applauding as she floated back down. "Your adaptation to this new development is quite startling." She landed next to him, examining the scarlet energy welling up in his hands as he did the same. Cyborg joined in, staring openly at Robin's hands. Were either of them to look at the new arrival, they would have seen his concern shining through.

Robin extinguished the organic, homogeneous flame and rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess I catch on pretty quick," he admitted modestly.

"So what do you call those things?" asked Cyborg.

The two secret admirers looked to each other, then away, each coming back with a pang of red in their faces. "Bird bolts," Robin answered, abashed.

Cyborg couldn't help but chuckle. "Pretty catchy," he teased the two. Starfire seemed to suffer the worst of their embarrassment, but recovered in a moment. Her discomfort became curiosity as Cyborg then said, "Hey Star, could you give us a minute? I need to talk to Robin about something."

She looked to Robin, but their stone-faced leader nodded in agreement. "It's okay, Kory. Why don't you take five? We'll get back to it in a minute. And this time," he added with a wag of his finger, "Don't hold back."

"If you believe you can handle it," she countered with a flip of her hair. Her playful look back as she floated away told a story that everyone except Robin could read like an open book. It was as if the language of her green eyes was somehow unreadable to the Teen Wonder, even though Cyborg scanned it like the lines beneath the colorful pictures of a Dr. Seuss novella.

Turning back to his tremendous friend, Robin asked, "So what's up? How's the new eye working?"

"Works okay," Cyborg said, hoping to get straight to the point. "Robin, I think we have a problem."

He grunted, and turned toward the weight bench and barbell rack he and Terra had trained at that morning. "I know we have more than one," Robin quipped. "What's our latest one?" A fifty pound weight found its way into his hands, where it rotated end over end in his contemplative grip.

Cyborg steeled himself with a deep breath. "Bushido got into the tower. So did Slade."

"I noticed." The weight bent in twain as Robin twisted the ends. With a shriek and a creak, the hefty ends broke apart at the handle, stringing at the ends like Play-Doh.

"They got into the Tower, man," he insisted. Didn't Robin get it? "Nobody gets past my security."

"Puppet King."

Cyborg hissed. "Ah…" He coughed, looking away a moment. "Let's forget that ever happened, and remember all those upgrades I put in after that thing that never happened…happened." He swung back and gestured vaguely with his hands. "They got past my defenses, and we didn't hear a peep. There's only one way they could have done that, and that's if someone gave them the codes."

"I considered that," Robin told him. He squeezed the broken weight in either hand. The solid metal squashed like putty between his fingers. By the time he dropped them, nothing recognizable as what the weight had been struck the ground with a sharp clank.

"Bushido said something about an apprentice." He paused, then added, "When I was down in Techmann's lair, the dude contacting him said something about an apprentice too. Then when you guys showed up, the whole operation went to hell in a hand basket."

It didn't take a math whiz to put Cyborg's two and two together. "You're saying that Slade has a new apprentice," Robin revealed matter-of-factly. "And that it's one of us. That his apprentice is a Titan." His open glove resonated with a smack as he drove his fist into it with the force of a wrecking ball. The lenses of his mask narrowed into slits and bored into Cyborg's grim face as he delivered a promise. "If that's the case, then we'll be ready. Because we're going to train, and we're going to prepare." The gifts from his symbiote made training difficult, this Robin knew. But he wouldn't use it as an excuse to slack off. He would train with Cyborg's weights. He would design a uniform that could handle his strength and compliment his invulnerability. Whatever these bird bolts were, he would learn how to use them properly too. "And I promise," he added, "I'm going to personally track down whoever this apprentice is, and I'm going to make him pay."

Cyborg grunted, folding his arms as he glared down at his leader. "I don't know if that's such a good idea," he said.

The comment surprised Robin. "Why not?"

"Because," said Cyborg, "I'm not convinced that you aren't him."

END: HONOR

NEXT: ANNIVERSARY

_Author's Afterward_

Well, that's one more step in Robin's transformation. This is the first arc with Robin openly using his power. Quite the switch for me, and I hope you enjoyed it too. Even if you didn't, I hope you review. I'd like to expand readership (because I'm conceited and an attention hog, naturally), so I'd like to ask a favor of you all. If you like my story, tell a friend. Put it under your favorites (unless you just sort of like it, in which case you can wait until I dazzle you into putting it there legitimately). If you hate it, tell someone else how much it sucks, and make sure you mention me by name. That way, they can go out of their way to find out for themselves. Any way you can get this story out there would be great.

And, without further shameless plugging, I present to you my latest post-arc essay.

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF BEAST BOY

It isn't a stretch to say that any one of the Titans represents a walking, talking impossibility. An alien whose physiology so closely resembles that of a human? A half-demon magician? A half-robot kid? A pint-sized martial artist, capable of taking down men five times his size with a few kicks? Absurd, but still capable of being enjoyed if you suspend disbelief to a generally synonymous level among all of comicbookdom I like to call 'Comic Book Sciences.' But there's one Titan whose unfeasibility rises above the rest, one whose powers are so scientifically ludicrous, that they deserve special attention all to their own. And of course, assuming you've read the title, you must know that I speak of our own Garfield Logan, the Beast Boy.

First, we'll start with the actual transformations he undergoes. Beast Boy starts out as a normal, everyday (green) fourteen year old human. With but a thought, he becomes a whale. He _becomes_ a whale. His body doesn't stretch into the shape of a whale. He instead becomes physically identical to a whale, which means he takes on its relative mass, size, and cell count, a crime against both nature and physics.

Biologically speaking, this transformation would mean that he experiences a massive increase in cellular division, an increase that would require untold amounts of nutrients, proteins, and all those other niceties that cells need to multiply. I'm no biologist, but I imagine Beast Boy would need some kind of constant nutrient IV drip the size of a semi trailer to keep doing these metamorphoses.

Speaking in terms of physics, Beast Boy the whale gains several tons worth of mass from virtually thin air. Mass cannot be spontaneously created, only converted into other forms of mass or into energy. Even if Beast Boy were somehow performing a reverse of the process (converting energy to mass), that energy would have to come from somewhere. If it were chemical energy, we would again require that semi IV drip. If the energy were drawn from his surroundings, then Jump City would experience massive and sudden drops in ambient atomic activity as Beast Boy sucked surrounding heat to fuel his mass-increase transformations. I couldn't begin to describe the math behind the process, but I envision the city being flash-frozen as Beast Boy turns into a whale, thus defeating a villain by freezing the battlefield to absolute zero. This process would reverse as Beast Boy converted his existing mass into energy when he turns into a house fly, winning a fight by way of becoming the epicenter of a massive exothermic reaction and scorching the landscape around him.

The second impossibility is Beast Boy's brain capacity. I know, I know, Beast Boy isn't all that intelligent to begin with. But bear with me for a moment, please. Let's say Beast Boy turns into a goldfish. This means that, along with his body, his brain must have decreased in size as well. So now, he has the mental capacity of a goldfish by necessity. Five minutes after his metamorphosis, he would have forgotten all about ever being human, and continued through the rest of his existence as a goldfish. If he's a dinosaur, how is his walnut-sized brain going to remember how to work with Cyborg on the T-Rex Takedown? There's a reason animals never invented the automobile and people did; our neurological functions are incredibly different. And assuming Beast Boy's brain retained all its functions anyway, how would his human brain be able to process the different and vast information that animal senses would feed him? A wolf's nose would overload his olfactory processes. Would he even be able to figure out how to swim as a dolphin?

Third is the way he retains the ability to speak when he transforms. I realize that this is far more prevalent in the comic series than in the show, but it exists nonetheless ("Crash," Season 3). An amoeba does not have vocal capacity. It cannot speak. It barely has any organelles at all, much less a face. Maybe that's what Beast Boy thinks an amoeba looks like, but I don't see how he could possibly create an organelle that can vibrate to mimic human speech.

I could expand on any one of these points. I know just how pathetic I sound in pointing all this out. But, this insane impossibility has just been sticking in my craw, and I had to get it out. I apologize to you, my victim, but now you're far better off thanks to my ranting. The next time Beast Boy irritates you, you'll have one more reason to get ticked off at him.


	15. Anniversary: Discovery

_ A Reminder..._

Teen Titans: Avatar follows its own continuity, divergent from the show following Season Two, Episode Twenty-Two (Winner Take All) This includes Starfire's extraterrestrial arrival, which differs from that explained in Season Five, Episode Sixty-Two (Go!).

_All-Purpose Disclaimer_

**Teen Titans** is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Cartoon Network Inc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit and purely for entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, not to be reproduced or used without prior consent. Additional information used in creating **Teen Titans: Avatar** courtesy of Titans Tower Online.

Additionally, this story arc deals with mature themes and issues. The author attempts to portray them in a reasonable fashion, but readers are cautioned to continue at their own risk.

Now that that's out of the way... Enjoy.

* * *

"Let me go."

The pitiful mewl perked his aural fins up and drew him out of his daydream. There, in the stinking gloom of the ship's brig, it wasn't difficult to be pulled into idle fantasy, if only to escape the wretched smell that clung to the cells no matter how many times he sprayed them down. He found himself daydreaming more often these days, ill-satisfied with the lackluster assignment his glorious commanders saw fit to heap upon him. Standing outside of the brig's most important cell, he wondered, not for the first time, if dreams would protect him if he were on the other side of the cell's bars. As always, he vowed never to find out.

"Please." The plea wafted through the bars once more as the specimen began to stir. Its gaunt, golden frame shone in the bare confines of its cell, despite both it and its incarcerating surroundings being covered in unutterable filth. Ropy muscles twitched and rolled beneath pallid skin as she struggled onto its hands and knees.

The sight of the budding spheres bouncing on the specimen's chest kindled a sick lust within him, which he quashed immediately. Mammary glands were exotic to a reptilian species, he reminded himself, but the Order of Things must be remembered first. One mustn't feel desire for such a contemptible creature.

The specimen stumbled, and they bounced again.

And yet…

"Please," the specimen gasped, drawing herself up against the door of its cage with monumental effort. Its chest heaved into the bars, but more striking were the brilliant points of green that now served as its eyes. Only since the General's scientists' experimentation had they begun to glow. He found it as horribly alluring as the creature's breasts. "Let me go," it begged again with gasps and heaves. Too weak to cry, it just stared at him through layers of filth and scars with those luminous eyes. "I must go."

He smothered a tight, patronizing laugh. "I don't think it's up to me, little one," he told the specimen. Leaning in, he gave it a conspiratorial whisper; "Besides, since the other one escaped, you're all that's left."

"I cannot live here!" Despair lit the deadened glow in its eyes into a desperate blaze that fought the domineering dank of their dungeon. "You must let me out!" The specimen gripped the bars, rattling the cage with a burst of augmented strength, courtesy of his wise General and his equally wise machinations. Clearly, if it still had so much spirit after all these years, its species would make an excellent weapon, particularly if those scientists' strange designs paid off.

It fell away from the bars, pooling in a felinoid heap of exhaustion. Emboldened, aroused, he approached its cage with his hand careful to linger near his sidearm. "I can't do that, little one," he cooed. His hand drifted from the pistol at his hip to its neighboring keycard. The electronic key fit into a slot on the cell door, releasing the lock and allowing him entry into its cage. "Your mommy and daddy gave you away. You belong to us, now."

He hovered over the specimen a moment, savoring the sight of its shivering, naked form. A moment's hesitation kept his hand just above her flesh. Shudders wracked its body as he rolled the specimen over and stroked its grimy skin. A patchy curtain of once-vibrant ginger hair masked its terrified features. In a hush, he told it, "You belong to me now, precious."

Those shudders turned to squirming as it watched him loosen his belt with one hand. His other kept the specimen in place, in full view of the growing, anticipatory leer on his face. The cracked and bleeding slugs that served as its lips parted to squeak, "You will not keep me always. I will be free."

He pinned the specimen to the floor, reveling in its soft flesh as it writhed against his domineering frame. Its fear swam in his sinuses, exciting him to new levels as he thrust into her. The defeatist sobs that came forth drew a chuckle from him between grunts.

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Anniversary**: _Discovery_

He awoke with a start to the soft, insistent beeping of a familiar and damnable computer console. Hands made clumsy by sleep reached out to silence the offending machine, and found instead a still hot mug of Raktajino. The trembling surface of the alien coffee overcame the lip of its mug and spilled onto his three-fingered hand. Dribbling drops of the beverage spattered onto a blinking control panel as the owner of the hand, the mug, the panel, and the treacherous Raktajino winced and steadied his mug back into its dark brown ring on the panel next to him. Ignoring the puddle of brown collecting at the mug's base, he clutched his hand and mumbled several choice words about his mug and its parentage. The mug refused to degrade itself by responding in kind, and instead maintained a dignified silence.

He wiped away the cooling sludge, first from his offended fingers, and then from his console. Above the sticky controls, starlight laughed at him through three inches of scratched transparent aluminum. The tiny viewport in his tiny cockpit rarely offered him anything aside from the laughter of stars as they crawled from its center to its riveted edges.

Having endured an entire stellar cycle of their mockery, he found other ways of occupying his time besides looking out the window. The days when space had held endless wonder for him were long past. Now the oppressive vacuum served as his prison, and this cramped, one-seater cockpit his cell.

He hated that viewport. He hated the glimmering pinpoints that served as his cellmates. And now, he hated the blue dot that grew in the center of that viewport. The dot meant an end to his manageable daily monotony, and served to remind of his accursed lot in life. 'One cosmic mote,' he grumbled an age-old complaint to himself, 'Searching for another mote within the galaxy. Madness in its distillated form.'

A worn button clicked beneath his clawed finger, stirring a hidden microphone to attentiveness. "Scout Vessel Wyvern, Starlog: Eighteen, Twenty-Four, Nine. Centurion Skrag reporting."

Centurion. Ha. Yet another piece of his life whose meaning the crew stars had erased over the longest stellar cycle in memory. Rank cylinders once shiny with meticulous care rusted away on the shoulders of his uniform, which stretched round the middle to accommodate endless months of swivel chair. The rolls of fat sat wedged against his primary controls, since his chair would shift back no further. Unfit for duty. Far past caring.

He continued his report, matching the computer's apathy with his droning voice. "Now approaching the third planet of the star Klagg-Oh-Eight-Three. Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere, mostly water surface. Only planet in the system capable of harboring the escapee. No survey of the planet exists within Gordanian databases, so I'll be winging my investigation…again.

He paused in his oration to scratch at his broad buttocks, letting the recording continue on without him. Green eyes flashed from his memory and beckoned him back to his past: back to a time when his stomach's solidarity rivaled any bulkhead, when his aural fins didn't droop down onto his shoulders, and when his pips and armor shone with a soldier's pride. Those frelling eyes… They once filled him with mirth at their unyielding pain, compounded with an impotent hatred that made him feel drunk with power.

That hatred hadn't been so impotent after all. The specimen's escape ended Skrag's career before her stolen escape pod had even cleared its mooring. Even though he hadn't been near her cage at the time, even though he had been off-duty, asleep in his quarters, it didn't matter. The failure of his men, who were all dead now, rested solely on him.

"Come back with the specimen." He murmured the words his General had flung so furiously at his favorite toy's escape. Skrag's gullet froze every time he recalled the order which had ended his career. "Come back with it," the General spoke through Skrag's rubbery lips, "Or do not come back at all."

Eighteen star systems later, Skrag had still not come back at all. And now the nineteenth red herring loomed ahead of him, blue and turning and making him sick. The specimen wouldn't be here. She wasn't anywhere. When the specimen overloaded the garfing jump drive on her garfing escape pod, the garfing navigators on the General's flagship came up with thousands of possible exit vectors for the burnt wreck to wind up at, all of them a load of garf. Skrag knew it had blown up in the attempt, turned into a puff of cosmic vapors by its own escape attempt.

The beeping insistence continued, warning him of the planetary defenses surrounding the watery blue orb. What kind of color was blue for an ocean, anyway? Didn't this planet have any fungalmite algae in their water? "Continuing report," he said, resuming his task at last, "Planet exhibits all the signs of a pre-FTL civilization. Minimal defenses in orbit, coordinated by a small space station positioned over the northern polar half of the planet." He blinked before noting, "Some of the weapons appear to be pointed at the planet rather than away…quite a few of them, really. Lunacy."

A flicked switch raised his ship's cloak, which protected him from detection via the primitive scanners from the planet's laughable defense platform. He did read a whole slew of strange energy signatures coming from the cylindrical structure, but none of them registered as the specimen's, so he left it to spin around its dreary little world, and instead positioned his ship amidst the endless field of metallic garbage that passed for satellites in this system. It took little effort to hack into their communications' network. As the computer filtered out the useless junk (dead signals, dramatic entertainment programming, and strange and colorful moving pictures with dubbed voices behind them), Skrag poured a new Raktajino from his ships' limited stores.

An hour later, the computer uploaded the primary languages of the planet into his universal translator implant, and then began displaying all the pertinent data left after the filtration process. "Such a waste," he grumbled, flipping through endless captured news programs and military reports. "It isn't here. It's dead."

Twenty minutes later, after viewing a news report from the western coast of one of the planet's feeble continents, Skrag found himself eating his words, and loving their taste. Upon first sight of the specimen, he dropped his mug, never feeling its boiling liquid seeping into his armored leg. Once the shock wore off, he allowed himself the beginnings of a triumphant smile. Finally, after ages, it was time to get to work.

"I've got you," he crowed, freezing the image of the specimen and her meta-talented allies from the news report. "I've finally got you, you Tamaranian whore."

* * *

_The rocky underbrush of the lush island rushed beneath her trailing toes as she floated over the terrain. Waning sunlight lit her way and warmed her bare shoulders, but could not ease her frustration at her unfamiliarity with the area. Unfamiliarity, it seemed, would remain her dominant obstacle for quite some time, a thought which daunted her often. But for right now, she took comfort in the cardboard contours of the colorful cover clutched to her chest. _

_Besides which, a towering landmark stood in the center of the strange island, which kept her from getting totally lost. Though still in the process of being built, its skeletal steel frame could be seen from any point on the island, beach or cove. And having checked the other parts of the island, she surmised that her quarry must be at the last unchecked place; the landmark itself. Obvious in retrospect: her quarry would be loathe to cease efforts on their future home._

_No longer content to skim across the ground, she soared into open sky, lofted by the self-perpetuating joy of flight. Her beeline took her to the base of the framework tower. Mechanical construction drones, like great Calodorian scarabs, crawled tirelessly over its solidifying form at the behest of her quarry and another companion she recognized, the metallic giant with silver skin. Both stood at the base of the tower, pointing up at different parts of it with words that weren't quite heated, but weren't quite friendly, either._

_Both friends looked up as she dropped next to them in a graceful descent. The English they spoke to each other went by too quickly for her to understand. Whatever the words meant, though, they seemed to satisfy the disagreement that had bound them to the site. Her metallic friend offered a smile and a wave before walking off, presumably to continue supervising the robotic constructors that crawled about their future home's empty core. _

_Her quarry remained, wearing cheerful features aimed in her direction. The long curtain hanging from his back waved in the wind, flashing gold and onyx in the late afternoon sun. Wisps of chalky dust rose from his green hands as the Rahbin dusted them off and said, "Hey, Starfire." With a nod, he added, "Looking good."_

_She smiled at the nickname, her nickname, given to her by the Rahbin in their second encounter. "Hay," she said in reciprocation. Later, she would ask him why he complimented her eyesight, never realizing that he meant the tank top and oversized jeans taken from his own stock of apparel to keep the odd custom of modesty Earthlings favored. The clothes reminded her of the Rahbin, they smelled like he smelled, making this bizarre world seem a little less imposing. An adoring gaze felt, to her, ill remittance for such wonderful gifts, but she stared at him thusly anyway._

_A moment's silence quirked one of his blank, void-like eyes. She failed to notice at first; she always avoided his eyes. Their emptiness made her feel uneasy. If it weren't for his unparalleled kindness, they'd make her afraid. "Um," the Rahbin said, "Is everything okay?"_

_The words remained unfamiliar to her, but she recognized the tone as questioning. Broadening her smile, she held her cardboard tome out in front of her, brandishing the pictures of its cover like sorcery to dispel the tension she saw in his body. "Rahbin," she said in an insisting tone, "Buk."_

_The Rahbin pulled a disc of red and gold from his pocket and spied its flashing numbers. His face snapped to attentive realization as he exclaimed, "Oh, right! Gosh, I'm sorry, Star. I must have—"  
_

_Sorry was one of the words she did recognize, and had no use for at the moment. Waggling strands of her hair, still cropped short to rid her of the portions burnt and frayed by her exciting terrestrial landing, teased her neck as she shook her head. "No sorry," she said again, and emphasized her treasure with a push, saying again, "Buk."_

_His masked features fell into a ready smile, which she liked much better than his 'sorry' face. "Right," the Rahbin said with a nod, and repeated, "Book." A spark jumped between them as he took the book from her insistent grasp, brushing her fingers with his own. The touch sent an alarming shiver down her spine. Only the return of his questioning tone pulled her from the not-unpleasant tingle. "So, where should we…" He looked about, casting his blank eyes at the noisy, dusty, smelly construction site with evident distaste._

_She read his tone and body language. Where would they go? Well, she came prepared for that. She darted around behind him, reaching beneath the folds of his shoulder curtain as she said, "Ap!" Instead of struggle, she felt relaxation spread through his wiry shoulders as she lifted him free of the ground. Most flightless creatures would panic. The Rahbin trusted her, and she wouldn't take that trust for granted, or ever betray it._

_Together, she and the Rahbin rode the ocean breeze from the center of the island to its southernmost tip. A tiny lagoon, walled off by a hulking semicircle of cliff walls, dipped into the sands of the beach a hundred yards from the rolling tides. Sunlight shimmered off a lagoon's reflective surface of the pool, casting a troupe of dancing lights the muddy face of the cove's cliff backing. Her earlier wanderings had revealed the secret place, and decided for her the location of their future meeting. A stout piece of driftwood seated at the end of a dragged path in the sand waited patiently for them at the lagoon's edge while they landed without incident._

_The Rahbin surveyed their location with a slow turn. He clearly had not known about the cove, and nodded as he said, "It's nice."_

_She thought his tone appreciative, but with his eyes blocked off so, she couldn't be certain if he approved or not. Regardless, she sat upon the surf-smoothed log and patted the wood next to her. "Buk," she reminded him with impatience._

_The driftwood rattled at the addition of his weight. "Book," he agreed, and opened the cardboard cover of her selection for this Wednesday night. Clearing his throat, the Rahbin began, "The Sneeches, by Doctor Seuss." Pausing, he glanced over at her and gestured helplessly at the book. "Doctor Seuss is the person who wrote the book."_

_"Soose. Buk." She pointed to one of the humorous little bird creatures on the first page. "Sneeches."_

_The Rahbin smiled. "That's right. Sneeches." He turned the page, and continued to read, performing voices when appropriate. _

_She listened, enraptured, as the fantastic world of the Sneeches came alive through his steady, strong voice. Most of the words were nonsense, even for English, but she didn't care. No protest came as she leaned close and rested her head on his shoulder, pretending to want to see the pictures better. The smooth weave of his curtain rose and fell in a rhythmic pattern, soothing and smoothing the anxieties this new world pressed upon her. Every aspect of Earth felt weird and frightening, until the Rahbin made it clear._

_For the first time in a long time, everything felt right._

* * *

"Robin? Robin?"

Starfire glided down an empty corridor, calling out for her absent friend with contented curiosity. Her feet trailed lazily a few inches off the ground as she navigated the twists and turns of their home. A light smile adorned her face, and a worn book bound in leather trembled with anticipation in her golden grasp.

When Robin hadn't met her in her room at seven o'clock, as he customarily did on Wednesdays with clockwork precision, Starfire had chosen to wait patiently in lieu of panicking and assuming the worst. Robin often got caught up in his work, making him forget the time. The first Wednesday night he had failed to show up promptly at seven, Starfire had burned through his door, looking to save him from the terrible threat that had him in its clutches, and instead found him shocked and bewildered, formerly engrossed with a case file at his desk. Surely, thought she, Robin would take pride in her marked improvement in restraint.

"Robin," she called again, "Where are you?" The empty Vehicle Bay, Training Room, Medical Lab, Mainframe, and his vacated room held no answers to her quandary. In fact, she hadn't seen Robin, or any of the Titans, since breakfast that morning. Beast Boy and Terra had vanished with a conspiratorial glance and a giggle in her direction, but from the rest she had received only stony silence. That Raven should treat her thusly came as no surprise, and Cyborg could hardly be bothered for a 'hello' while he immersed himself in the reconstruction of the Titans' vehicles. It was Robin's unusual silence that stung the most. Perhaps a new case monopolized his time. Or perhaps he simply did not feel well. Was his symbiote acting up? It could be taking over his mind right now. If an extra-dimensional monster hadn't already abducted him! Or—

No. No, she wouldn't do that again. Starfire took several long, deep breaths and forced herself to remember where she was. Logic, not emotion, should dictate her earthly actions. It wasn't easy; a Tamaranian's life hinged upon action, not consideration, where the first and best response held the most truth. And when it came to Robin's absence, Starfire's first and continued response always gravitated toward panic. 'Robin is fine,' she told herself unconvincingly. 'He is merely detained, and so we will seek him out in a rational manner.' Her mind seemed satisfied by the compromise, but her heart still possessed unshakable conviction that something bad was not far off. Desperate to assuage it, she continued on in a hurried glide.

Up vacant stairs and through lonely corridors, the alien princess flew with eyes hungry for any sign of her friends. Her search revealed nothing, until at last, she came upon a sliver of light in the darkened hall on the Tower's uppermost level. Joyful at her discovery, she approached the double doors of Ops, feeling proud of this vindication of her patience and moderation.

'You see?' she said to her wounded heart, 'They are in Ops, and Robin is most likely with them. There must be some important events that have detained him from finding us.'

Maybe he is just getting tired of this.

The hurtful notion from her treacherous heart drew Starfire's fingers tighter around the leather bound tome in her hands. 'The Wednesday nights mean as much to him as it does to us. You will see.'

A stern voice floated from beneath Ops' doors. Starfire recognized it in an instant, and felt a rush of joy chase her gloom away. As she approached the doors, that rising joy became grounded in the abnormally caustic tone of the voice. Robin's stony words forced her to pause at the door, and bent her ear for a clandestine listen beyond the eye of the door's sensor.

"What do you mean, 'He can't land yet,'?" Robin all but shouted at some unseen opposition. "Do you know how long I've worked to set this up? I've been beaming messages into space for the last three months trying to find someone like him!"

Starfire gasped. What reason did Robin have for communicating with off-world aliens? She was the only extraterrestrial who mattered to him, no? And why did he sound so angry?

Half audible murmurs answered Robin's wrath, indiscernible to Starfire's prying ears. "The authorities have been alerted, local forces are standing by. I went through…" A pause erupted in his answer as the mumbles returned to which he replied, "No, I didn't think of going through the League." Another pause. Another brief murmur, louder than before. "Because you don't own the sky, that's why."

Robin argued with the League of Justice? Were they not allies of the Teen Titans?

"Look." Robin's voice dropped an octave, silencing Starfire's unspoken questions. "He's here. He's coming. This goes down tonight, or not at all." The murmurs grumbled something back at him. "Fine," he said, "Scan his ship. But he's coming, whether you like it or not. Starfire is—"

The use of her name tipped Starfire's scales in favor of curiosity over discretion. She leaned in too close to the door, tripping its sensor. The sheafs of metal split apart with a whoosh, revealing the room's secrets to Starfire at the cost of her anonymity. Startled, she stumbled in with a yelp, and found herself the center of attention.

Everything in Ops froze at her entrance; standing at the kitchenette, Cyborg's shocked face became splattered from the contents of the mixing bowl in his hand, which a beater protruding from his index finger kicked up into a lumpy yellow froth; a glistening red orb whistled flat from Terra's lips, dropping limply into a collection of multicolored, translucent orbs at her feet; a mocha face with blazing green eyes vanished from Ops' main screen in a flash as Robin mashed his finger into the console in a panic.

"Starfire!" She caught his blank, wide eyes staring at her, and rose to hear him say quickly, "What are you…Why…Uh…" True to his nature, the Teen Wonder regained his composure in an instant. A sidestep took him away from the computer console, allowing him time to regain his composure and calling attention away from his friends as they stowed their respective projects out of sight. "What's up?"

Starfire took tentative steps into the room. The doors snapped shut behind her, buffeting her with a light puff of air. All of a sudden she felt like an unwelcome intruder in her own home. Terra had tossed a hasty cloak over her inflated orbs, covering them with a blanket from the couch. Cyborg's contraband hid behind his back and a too-broad smile. "I…It is Wednesday night, Robin." The book rose in her grasp, glaring at Robin from next to her face with dour expressions of late Victorian British disapproval. "You never came."

Robin's face scrunched. He grasped at his forehead and groaned. The Tamaranian could imagine the sound of the headache growing inside his skull. A soft curse escaped his lips before they twisted into a forced smile that offended Starfire's eyes. "I'm really sorry, Kory," he lamented lamely. "I totally spaced on the day."

"It is all right." Her genuine smile countered Robin's false one in the hopes of salvaging the night. The pages of her book buzzed beneath her thumb while they flipped to the page she and Robin had left off on. "May we proceed now? I am eager to see which of the Earnests finds true love, and which will be exposed as fraudulent."

A nervous cough, muffled by Robin's green fist, tore Starfire's expectant hopes apart. "Actually, Kory," he said, "Something's come up. Important business."

"Oh." Starfire did her best to keep a brave, positive face. "Then I gladly offer you my assistance in this time of need."

"Um, tell you the truth…" Cyborg stepped forward. He raised a finger, and after noting its still-dripping mixing beater, swapped it behind his back for its unfettered opposite. "It's mostly just some computer clean-out. Organizing case files, deleting old data…That sort of thing."

Terra piped in, "And I'm here for, um…moral support?" She rubbed the back of her neck, a gesture she had picked up from too much time around her shapeshifting friend.

The three deceitful Titans continued to sweat beneath Starfire's confused and vaguely hurt eyes until the secondary hatch of Ops swooshed open to the side of their awkward confrontation. Raven swept into the com, hood down, looking as dour as she ever had. The rattling of a heavy, ill-packed package propelled by clumsy feet followed a few steps behind her as she entered and announced, "There. That's the last time I play taxi."

Black and purple legs extended from the bottom of the open brown box behind her, trying in its awkwardness to maneuver through the door. Colorful tails trailed out of the box's open mouth, which held a large bundle of rolled paper upright. "We're back, dudes," the box called needlessly with Beast Boy's voice, "And we've got the par—"

A birdarang quivered to a stop, wing-deep in the door's overly-complex keypad control, before any of the others could react. The noise of the impact soon became lost in the helpless, agonized wails of Beast Boy; his foot became the victim of the door's damage protocols crushed between its divided halves. Though he vanished from view (all but his foot, which swelled under the intense pressure), his cries still deafened them through the gap left wedged open. Raven took pity on him several seconds later, and freed him with an indelicate bolt of telekinesis. When the doors at last closed, all that came through were muffled hoots and several words Starfire felt grateful she didn't quite recognize.

Cyborg hurried to retrieve Beast Boy's box. The innocent package had flown from his grasp an instant before the changeling's shock became pain, and now lay on its side with its contents spilled out. Packages lay scattered across the carpet in hues of greens and purples before Cyborg's giant hand swept them back into the box. At Starfire's inquisitive look, he stuttered, "Just some equipment we'll need for tonight." To Raven, he said, "Thanks for teleporting over to pick this stuff up."

"Just hurry up and rebuild the car," she groused back. "I'm not a ferry."

Another of Robin's coughs cut Starfire short, this time before she could ask why anyone should consider Raven a fairy. "Actually, Raven," he said, "Isn't there something you should be doing? Right now?" His head tilted violently in Starfire's direction with several more coughs. "Right. Now."

The sorceress stared blankly at their leader through several more coughs. "Oh," she said finally, sounding more bored than anything else. "Right." Reaching out, her cold hands snagged Starfire's arm and pulled, dragging the alien across the floor and out Ops' main doors before she could squeak in protest. "Come on, Starfire. Let's go."

The futuristic doors snapped shut, cutting Starfire off from the rest of her friends with a final swoosh and a snap of metal striking metal. Raven's grip broke easily; the half-demon didn't have any interest in hanging on to her while Starfire built up steam for her impending wrath. "I insist on knowing what is occurring in Ops, Raven," she barked, waving her book under Raven's nose. "Why are our friends lying to me? And why have you jettisoned me from the room?"

Those dark, violet eyes examined the gilded title flashing dangerously close to her face, which remained indifferent throughout. "The Importance of Being Earnest. Hmm. Want to know how it ends?"

"What? No." Starfire deflated quickly. Anger didn't come naturally or easily to her, a fact she usually liked. Tonight, she might have enjoyed it a little more, if only she were capable of holding any real grudge against her friends. In that respect, she envied Raven a little. "I just want to know what is going on," she repeated.

The troubled glow growing in Starfire's eyes reflected on Raven's features as she drew her mouth up into a considering expression. The alien hung on Raven's absent response for several moments more, until at last she spoke. "Listen, Starfire. Just…leave the Tower for a few hours. Then come back."

Raven could easily have gotten the same reaction from her friend if she had taken a baseball bat to her bronzed, taut midriff instead. "You…" Starfire could barely force the words from her trembling, cottony mouth. "You are…asking me to leave?"

A roll of the eyes added insult and further injury. "Just for a few hours, Starfire. Everything's fine." And with that, the sorceress drew her hood up around her ears and backed away, leaving her fellow Titan to stew in a sea of sorrow. As the shadows swallowed Raven whole (just the way the sorceress liked it), Starfire tried in vain to understand why her entire world had been turned upside down in the space of a few minutes.

Colorful paper tails: Streamers. Translucent inflatable orbs: Balloons. Paper roll: A banner. Her friends were not working on any computer project. They had lied to her.

They had lied.

To her.

"They are planning a celebration," Starfire murmured, clutching the empty Earnestness to her chest as her vision became blurry. "And they no longer want me around."

**To Be Continued**

Confused? Good. It'll make more (but not total) sense in the next exciting installment of Teen Titans: Avatar.


	16. Anniversary: Troika

**

* * *

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**Teen Titans**  
**Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Anniversary**: _Troika_

Jump City possessed the highest metahuman population growth rate in America.

Certainly, places like Central City, Gotham City, or even Metropolis, had more than their fair share of super beings. They also played host to the most famous powers on the planet. But aside from a one-time spike in a sleepy suburb called Dakota Hills, no city could match the staggering rise in metatalent influx in Jump City, California.

The fair majority of this mounting minority consisted of metahumans with aspirations toward just fitting in: A suburban dad, working a nine-to-five, who could bench press the family sedan; A grandmother who could always tell when her littlest granddaughter needed her, even half a city away; A group of runaway teens with enough raw power in their fingertips to level a city block, who just wanted to get by, and help others like themselves. As mundane as extraordinary people could be, they flocked in droves to Jump City, encouraged by the example of the city's tolerance toward a T-shaped tower and its tenants within. If freaks such as they could be accepted, running amok as they did, certainly others like them could find acceptance, no?

But among all those good-hearted folk, there existed, however few, a number of bad apples. Less than one of every one thousand registered metahumans chose to use their gifts for their own reckless betterment, but they were the most memorable. Cinderblock. Killer Moth. Plasmus. Puppet King. Okay, maybe not Puppet King.

But even these ones out of thousands added up as more metas flooded into Jump City. They soon began popping out of the woodwork in every dark alley, every rotten slum the booming would-be metropolis had. Like its heroic opposites, this villainous element formed a hidden community: a brotherhood of evil, or a loosely-associated legion of doom. And like every community, they needed a center, a point around which their shared time could revolve around.

And so: The Hideout.

The pale, ethereal hands of one Jinx worked into her tufts of bubble gum hair as she braced her elbows against the polished steel bar top and searched for meaning within the ice cubes of her Shirley Temple. None came. Succumbing to another sigh, she dipped her head and pulled the sweet drink through a licorice straw. If it would not quell her existentialism, then she would have to be satisfied with Shirley's service of sating her thirst. Such was the only comfort found in the belly of The Hideout.

She relinquished the straw from her cherry lips and heaved another sigh, unable to help herself. There she was, smack in the middle of a Wednesday evening, with nothing better to do than secrete herself in a stinky secret bar and surround herself with costumed clowns. Already, the tiresome entreaties of a young man dressed up like some sort of dark bird (calling himself Shadow Hawk, of all things) had worn her last nerves paper thin. At his third offering of a drink and a backseat rendezvous, she had sent him packing with a low-powered curse right between the eyes. The spell was nothing lethal, as killing wasn't allowed in The Hideout, but the curse would ensure that whatever women he sought to turn into notches on his belt would have to possess a sick fetish for purple acne.

From the ill-lit pool tables and through the crush of colorful characters came two familiar faces, piercing the heavy cigarette smoke with tier identical expressions of scorn. The difference in sizes between the two could be deemed laughable, if anyone among them had the courage to laugh at either of the pair: one stood so large that his ginger hair nearly brushed the ceiling, while his miniscule compatriot barely came up to his knee, and stood well below the waists of most everyone in the bar. The pocketed hands and slumped shoulders of the larger friend told her that he had just lost more money than he could afford to part with, the recipient of which she guessed to be the joyful individual dressed like a serpent celebrating by the pool tables.

Her gargantuan friend sidled up to the bar next to her, while the tiniest of their trio grumbled uncouth words at the giant's feet. "Beer," the giant said to the bartender, who already had a mug of the giant's favorite brew poured before the request came. The frosted mug slid into his hands. "Thanks, Scruffy," he grunted, and downed the mug in one tilt of his thick neck.

"Well?" Her tone couldn't help but be snippy. Judging by the amount of laughter floating over from the pool tables, their finances had just taken a terminal dip. "What's the damage, Baran?"

Mammoth barely afforded her an irritated glare as the last of the cheap brew dribbled down his throat. "Enough," he said into his mug, fogging its innards before he slammed it down onto the bar. The rest of the bar top's drinks rattled at his superior strength, earning him irate glances from costumed comrades on either side. But their ire paled in comparison to the anger bubbling at him from beneath furrowed pink eyebrows at his immediate left. "What?" he asked.

"What do you mean, 'what?'" she barked. Dark lilac power crackled at her fingertips, but she tossed instead an accusatory jab of her pointing finger into his tree-trunk chest. "We haven't had a job in weeks," she reminded him in a shrill tone. Her finger bent against muscles that iron envied for their solidity as she drove home her point. "No job means no money, no money means no food, and no food means a pissed-off Jinx."

"Hey," he groused, raising a finger to signal Scruffy for a refill, "Can I help it if Sidewinder caught on to Mik's gyro-whatsit cue?"

"Gyroscopic, crud muncher," their green-garbed gremlin shot up at them. Backing away from the bar, he called up, "Hey, Scruffy, gimmie a beer, too."

A fresh mug slid from the hairy old bartender's hands into Mammoth's, accepted without so much as a 'thank you.' Scruffy took a rag from his stained apron and began wiping the counter down. The wild beard on his face glared down at Gizmo with knowing disapproval, twisting into a grimace which didn't encroach on the man's mechanical tone. "Sorry, Gizmo," he said, "But you know the rules; You can't see over the bar, you don't drink from the bar."

Four thick mechanical stalks spidered out of the pack behind Gizmo, lifting him level with Mammoth's seated head. A fifth appendage telescoped up and over his shoulder, becoming a long tube whose end glowed a hateful red mere inches from Scruffy's face. "This tall enough, skuzz eater?" he snarled, steadying his cannon to rest at the bartender's reddened nose.

Scruffy's eyebrows tweaked at the impending death hovering near his face. "You gonna put that away?" he asked in a fatherly tone.

Several choice words regarding Scruffy's excrement dietary choices rumbled from the tiny inventor as his mechanical legs deposited him onto a barstool and then retracted. A fizzing glass of soda awaited him on the counter. Scruffy's expectant face hovered above the drink with a knowing look. "Thanks," Gizmo said, albeit begrudgingly, and with more foul muttering than actual gratitude.

The trio sat in hard silence a moment after, each nursing the drinks they had purchased on credit which they could no longer afford to repay. Laughter and conversation rolled off their somber countenances like glistening oil on a rough sea. They sighed in unison.

"This sucks," Mammoth said at last. The words escaped on the tail end of a new sigh in a grunt.

"I've got a great idea, guys," Gizmo said in a falsetto voice that drew the other two's attention. "Why don't we ditch the Hive and go into business for ourselves?" He cast a scathing glare at Jinx to compliment his eternal sneer. "It'll be great!" The regular squeak in his voice returned as he grunted, "Dumbass," and sipped at his soda.

Jinx rolled her eyes. "Whine a little more, Mik," she shot back, "It makes me hot." A low chuckle erupted from Mammoth at this, but she heard hesitation lingering somewhere behind his voluminous snicker. Jinx knew that Mammoth and Gizmo were thick as thieves, like most stupid boys when around a stunning, intelligent, intimidating young woman such as herself. Already, she could hear the lines being drawn, and so she leapt to keep them all on the same side; "Look, I know things have been rough lately."

"Tell me about it," Mammoth rumbled. His finger traced around the empty rim of his beer. He could not afford another one. "What was it last week? Henching for Doctor Light? Doesn't get much lower than that."

"What about that team-up job we pulled with Punk Rocket," Gizmo reminded him. "Limey bastard couldn't go five minutes without bringing a building down. It's a wonder those Titan tweebs didn't rearrange our faces like they did his." The vile little inventor shuddered at the thought of those goody-goodies. With the relatively recent addition of the dirt pusher, that put their trio's odds against the Teen Titans at an even two-on-one. There were even rumors now that the lead dork himself, Robin, had a new suit which gave him super strength and plasma blasters, or something to that extent. Being a criminal in Jump City grew harder with each passing day…

"Look," said Jinx, "We're just in a slump." She forced herself to perk up, readjusting the slouch that governed her spine in the hopes that her teammates would follow suit. They did not. "We just need to find something to shake things up for us, that's all."

Neither of the boys were listening, and for good reason. A large creature blocked the only doorway of The Hideout. As strange and colorful a bunch as the bar's patronage boasted, none of them had ever before seen such a being: a large, meaty reptile, with frilled fins jutting from either side of its fat face, which held needle teeth that clacked in pensive consideration. Scuffed black armor bulged across its body, hiding folds of thick, scaly green skin. A technological rectangle sat in its three-fingered hand, beeping soft messages up at the creature's predatory eyes. The information its device fed it clearly met with disapproval, for the creature holstered the device gruffly.

Silence trickled into The Hideout through the doorway, squeezing around the edges of the burly creature to seep into the gathered throng of supervillains. Things hadn't been this tense in the bar since Jonny Rancid came in a few weeks before with a chip on his shoulder and a small howitzer strapped to his arm.

One of the bar's patrons, an up-and-comer in Jump City named Techwiz (whom Gizmo had nothing but hate for) left his dart game to circle around the bar's tabled gawkers. His metallic bio-booster armor clanked with each step in the hushed room as he approached the enormous lizard. "Hey, Green Jeans," he called. The creature grunted in recognition, ceasing its slow appraisal of the room to focus in on the teen Techwiz's advance. With dripping arrogance, Techwiz said, "Maybe you haven't heard, but we don't let just anybody into this place. Why don't you scurry back to your—"

Just as soon as the armored boy grew close enough, the creature's arm shot out. Techwiz found himself immobilized by three massive fingers that wrapped around to meet at the back of his helmet. His face was mashed into a smelly, scaly palm, torturing him for a split second with the foulest odor he had ever smelled. Then, in a strange sense of mercy, the creature flexed his fingers, crushing the helmet and its protected innards with a sharp squeal of compacting metal. Gouts of blood preceded the rush of runny, fatty ooze that escaped the broken helmet's cracks in its grasp. The newcomer tossed aside the dead villain and idly wiped its hand clean on the stretched lines of its armor.

The bar stared a moment more at the creature and its fresh kill. Then, someone dropped a fresh quarter into the corner's jukebox, and a dozen muted conversations picked up right where they had left off. No one paid any mind to the expanding puddle of blood that fountained out of the now-useless heap of armor on the floor, unless it lay in their path, in which case they simply stepped around it.

Gizmo cocked an eyebrow at the figure hunched in the doorway. "Who the frag is that?" Whoever the oversized gecko was, Gizmo felt that killing Techwiz had earned him a drink at the very least.

Mammoth eyeballed the creature, which seemed to be coming their way. Pectorals eager to work out their frustrations flexed beneath his breastplate, envisioning the monumental ruckus they could start. "Dunno," he muttered, not really caring. "Killer Croc?"

The creature strode up to the bar unimpeded. Mammoth, Jinx, and Gizmo watched in silent, subtle anticipation as it whipped the device at its belt back out and slammed it down onto the counter. "My name," the creature said, "Is Centurion Skrag of the Gordanian Armada."

Scruffy didn't bat an eye. His filthy rag squeaked against the equally filthy glass of a beer mug, which he looked up from just long enough to grunt at the newcomer. "That supposed to impress me?" the old man asked. "You made a mess in my bar. And I don't take kindly to people killing my customers. Bad for business."

Skrag examined the soft, fleshy creature in front of him with obvious contempt. From his belt he produced a small bag, cinched off at the top with a thin piece of wire which he worked off with his fat fingers. He upended the bag onto the counter. Long, skinny rectangles of glimmering yellow metal bounced onto the polished steel. Each embossed piece of gold was covered with strange lettering, none of which either Scruffy or the trio recognized. They did, however, recognize the metal they were minted from. "I understand your species still uses gold as currency," Skrag said.

The gold vanished from the bar top faster than the eye could follow, and then Scruffy returned to his dirty mug. "You were saying?" he asked with nonchalance.

The device that Skrag had placed indelicately on the counter buzzed to life at the Gordanian's fingertip. A hemispherical lens fitted atop the scanner lit up, projecting a field of photons into the air in front of their faces. "I'm looking for a non-Earther," Skrag said as his box's image coalesced. The image which he had captured from the news program in orbit now rotated before them, depicting six vibrant teenagers battling what looked to be a living pile of purple ooze. His finger then poked through the two-dimensional hologram, stabbing one of the holo-teens through the stomach. "The Tamaranian called Koriand'r is property of the Armada, and I have been sent here to retrieve it."

Three small gasps of surprise came before Scruffy's beard-scratching response. "You're an alien, then," he grunted, examining the picture. "Must not know, then." A wizen finger of his waggled at the gathered teens in Skrag's picture. "These here are the Teen Titans. Tough bunch'a kids. Ask anyone in this room; they probably been beat by 'em at least once or twice."

Skrag leaned across the counter, looming over the aged, hairy, distillery-smelling human. A look of putrescent disdain spread over his reptilian features. "I am not interested in the exploits of a few metatalented primates," he growled. The smell of rancid meat and alien coffee haunted the back of his throat and spirited across Scruffy's poker face, drawing the man's lip up in a disgusted twitch. "I," continued Skrag, "Am only concerned with the Tamaranian. My scanner indicated this location as the strongest and most abnormal energy source in this…city." He said the word as one might say the word 'art' at a showcase for preschool finger-painting. "Now, you will tell me everything you know about the Tamaranian."

"Guys," muttered Jinx, "I think we just got shook up." Though they said nothing, she could feel their silent approval as she spoke up; "Hey, Skrag," she called, pulling both the alien and the bartender out of the conversation to look her way. "You're interested in taking down Starfire?"

Scruffy used the distraction to escape from the exchange, which Skrag didn't seem to mind. The Gordanian turned toward the pink-capped girl with a skeptical look. "And what do you know of it?" he countered.

Looking between Mammoth and Gizmo, she summoned up her best smile. Leaning back against the counter, Jinx indicated the long row of bottles seated behind the bar. "Why don't you buy us a drink," she suggested, "While we tell you how we're going to help you nail a Titan."

* * *

_"Galfore! Galfore!" She crossed the nursery in a single leap to land in a giant's embrace. The lilac walls the room rang with her laughter, and soon rumbled with his, as he caught her and spun her in a dizzying circle that made her shriek with glee. Only after her tiny little lungs heaved at his tickling hands did he swing her to a stop and cradle her against his barrel chest. Little tears of joy shone in her eyes as she said breathlessly, "Is it time?"_

_The warrior's scarred and hardened features split with a leathery grin. "No air left in your lungs for a greeting, Little One?" Galfore waggled a finger at her and teased with a mischievous look. "Perhaps I should tickle one out of you."_

_She threw her arms against his stomach, hugging him as best as her stubby limbs could manage. "Hello, K'norf'ka. I missed you. Is it time?" Her eyes, freshly wiped clear, glistened instead with excitement. _

_Galfore laughed again as he carried the bouncing child over to her bed. She squealed in delight as she plopped onto the downy bed. The frame supporting her bed's feather mattress groaned and listed to one side as it accepted his muscular bulk. Powerful hands better suited for the hilt of a battle axe tugged silken sheets over her nightgown to her chin, where she grasped at their edge and smiled. That gap-toothed grin melted his enormous heart. "Training went well, then?" he asked._

_The grin grew. "Father is pleased with my swords work," she reported with a puffing of her miniscule chest. "He claims that I am a natural, that I have the heart of a warrior. Like you, K'norf'ka!"_

_Looking into her proud eyes of shimmering emerald, Galfore became very quiet and sorrowful. The scar tissue over his yellowing eye shuddered as he said, "Perhaps, my little bungorf, perhaps. But your poet's soul ill suits you to the life of a warrior, something for which I would gladly give my life to spare you from."_

_A pout soured her sweetness as she crossed her arms. "You always stall," she groused. Accusation lit her narrowed gaze. "My teeth are clean, my blade is polished and sheathed, and you promised, Galfore."_

_"My, my," he chuckled. "Such forcefulness from such a small one. Perhaps your warrior's heart does hold more sway than I thought, if you can attack a poor old man in such a ruthless fashion."_

_The hurt look on Galfore's face stole the wind from her self-righteous sails. She flopped back, morphing her pout into genuine sorrow. Nothing hurt so much as thinking she had done anything to upset her K'norf'ka. "I am sorry, Galfore," she said. "I do not mean to shame you, and I meant no disrespect. But you know how much I cherish these nights with you, and—"_

_"Peace, Little One, peace." A pat on her head silenced her apologies to make way for his reassuring laugh. "I treasure these nights more than you can imagine. One day, you will have no use for me or my tales. One day, you'll have no more time for stories." His face grew longer than his swaying beard at the thought, renewing her concern. "And I will be just another foolish old man who does not know when to cease talking."_

_She rested her hand atop his, a mote upon the back of a gigantic beast, to silence his foolishness. "You will never be foolish to me, K'norf'ka. And I will always love your stories, no matter how old you get."_

_"Oh, well, in that case…" He tickled her blanketed stomach, lightening the heavy emotion of their bond. As always, her giggle threatened to crack his leather face with the smile it gave him. "What tale shall we hear of tonight? Perhaps a tale of a bold and impertinent warrior princess, eh?" His eyebrows waggled._

_"Anything," she gushed, burying her fuzzy ginger hair into the pillow behind her and preparing her mind's eye for its nightly foray into the worlds Galfore spun for her delight. "Just tell me a story."_

* * *

Starfire sighed sharply and snapped closed her copy of The Importance of Being Earnest with hands the color of pink ivory. Her seat in the small café of the sprawling book store, _A Nook for a Book_, suddenly didn't feel as comfortable as it had when she first seated herself, and the non-fat half-caff no-whip soy mocha, a favorite of Beast Boy's which the princess had found herself fond of in a strange twist on her usual opinion of the changeling's consumption choices, no longer tasted as good as it had a moment before.

The rumpled lines of her long purple skirt and white v-neck blouse smoothed at her touch as she stood, abandoning both book and beverage at the café table as she ventured deeper into the bookstore once more. With nowhere else to go, and the raw ejection from the Tower which Raven had served to her hours ago still refusing to settle in her stomach, Starfire had taken refuge in _Nook_, hoping to find some solace in a story. But all she really wanted to read was Earnest, and after an hour of trying to get past the first page, it became apparent to Starfire that she just couldn't read it without Robin. It didn't feel right to read _their_ story without him.

Eyes followed Starfire as she strolled through the towering aisles of tomes, eyes belonging to human males who thought themselves surreptitious, but whose hanging jaws and furtive glances couldn't escape Starfire's notice. They could hardly be blamed; the delicate, stylish watch wrapped around her slender wrist painted her golden skin a cool ivory, and filled the green around her irises in with milky white. Thanks to the miracle of her Holographic Civilian Camouflage Chronometer, one of Cyborg's clever inventions, the Earth males of the shop saw her as quite possibly the most gorgeous example of teenage human womanhood and grace that ever walked the planet. She wondered if they would admire her knockout figure so much if they knew she could fold an automobile in half and then melt it with a mere look.

It mattered very little to Starfire. Blending in once in a while felt nice, and the notice of men certainly didn't hurt her ego. But there was only one set of eyes whose opinions mattered to her, eyes she had never even really seen…eyes whose owner had lied to her that very night. He no longer wanted her around. He despised her. He—

"No," she muttered to herself, rounding the corner and venturing along the row of bookshelves next to the broad marquis window. "I will not be party to such nonsense." Once again, her imagination sought to blow a small situation out of proportion. 'Yes,' she told her overactive imagination, 'Robin did lie to me. Remember, dishonesty is different here on Earth.'

Yes. Dishonesty existed everywhere on Earth. Between friends. Family. Lovers. All lying to each other, concealing truth, hurting one another without ever realizing it or ever caring. On Tamaran, lying was reserved for only one's most hated enemies, and only then at the cost of one's honor. Here, she couldn't escape it. All of a sudden, her holographic cloak began to itch. She knew the photonic field couldn't possibly irritate her skin, but nonetheless, she felt trapped within it.

A familiar title on the shelf caught her eye and chased her worries away, however temporarily. Reaching out, she caught the thin book by the top of its binding and pulled it free from the rest. The glossy cover of the reprint felt cool in her hands as she flipped it over to read the full title of the book with silent, moving lips. To Kill a Mockingbird. One of the earliest books she and Robin had read together during her first year on Earth, and the very first book she had picked out herself. A picture of the bird in question stared back at her from the cover, prompting a smile onto her face which she could not smother.

She recalled a similar picture on the cover of the copy she and Robin had read from, a picture which had been her sole motivation for picking the book out. Back then, her English had still been choppy; she had thought the word referring to all avian species on the planet to be 'robin,' and naturally thought the book a very clever and appropriate choice. Even after she had learned otherwise, the time with her best friend and the book held particular significance to her. She closed her eyes and ran a hand across the cover, allowing her memory to consume her whole, and swallow her back into a happier moment.

"Y'know," a velvet voice intoned from behind, "It's too bad this 's a store and not a library." Turning and opening her eyes, she could hardly contain her shock at seeing a familiar face leering at her from a few feet down the aisle, masked in part by a pair of sunglasses which seemed out of place in the late evening. "'Cause I could totally get in to checkin' you out."

Starfire found herself at a loss for words as the golden brown features of Magnum, the trash-talking Streetbeat she had met during their fierce battle a few months before, approached her with a dangerous swagger in his step. He wore a button-down shirt and clean khakis, with product in his hair to replace the grease and sweat it had the first time she had seen him. She could hardly believe it was him, until he lowered his sunglasses and stared openly at her chest with exactly the same boldness he had shown in their initial meeting.

At first she thought his manner coy. After another moment of his stare, Starfire realized that he couldn't recognize her. She didn't realize why, until a glance at her own hands reminded her of the duplicitous wristwatch she wore. "Haven't seen you around here before," he purred, leaning in close.

"I…" Starfire didn't quite know how to react. She had no real interest in speaking with Magnum. The two of them were fellow warriors, certainly, but that is where their similarities ended, which is how Starfire intended to keep it. 'Earth is home to duplicity,' she thought snidely. 'Very well. We will try it their way.' To Magnum, she coughed, allowing herself time to take a full step back and gather her wits about her. "You…you do not seem to me the kind of person who frequents bookeries," she told him.

If the wording seemed odd to Magnum, it passed him by; he was too engrossed in her cleavage to worry about such trivial things as diction. "Smart and beautiful," he grinned, offering her a wink as he swept the glasses from his nose in a rakish fashion. "Deadly combo, babe. And you're right," he admitted shamelessly. A dismissive sweep of his hands encompassed the bookstore, accompanying the vague look of distaste that spoiled his handsome features. "Books ain't really my style. I'm a man of action."

Starfire took a step back for every step Magnum took forward. She did her best to focus on the dark shapes moving across the other side of the store's frosted glass window, hoping that Magnum would get the message. He didn't. "Yes," she said, clutching the book tighter to her chest.

Magnum continued as if she had never spoken. "Just between you and me," he said with a brash smile, "I'm a big-time superhero. Lead my own team and everything. Maybe you've heard of us?" At this, he tugged at the half-buttoned shirt on his chest, revealing the top half of a glittering 'S' on the black T-shirt beneath it. "The Streetbeat?"

It took every ounce of control Starfire had to keep a straight face. As much as she wanted to, she had to admire his efforts, however misguided they were. And how appropriate that Earth should offer her yet another example of its foul duplicity as she wrestled with the concept. "It sounds familiar," she admitted.

"Yeah," he sniffed and swiped at his nose. "We're pretty big around this berg. Even saved the Titans one time."

Starfire stopped at this. She glanced at him with an honest look of disbelief across her otherworldly features. "Really."

He nodded. "Sure did." Magnum took her retreat as a sign of interest, and leaned against the frosted glass in a desperate attempt to regain his cool demeanor. "Me an' my team help the Titans out all the time. We're totally tight."

This time, her smirk would know no boundaries, and escaped onto her lips. "I am sure the Titans…appreciate your efforts," she said after some deliberation. A guilty glimmer of enjoyment wormed its way past Starfire's immense guilt at the duplicitous game. Perhaps there really was something to this lying business the Earthlings were so fond of.

Magnum's leer returned, traveling up and down the curved contours of Starfire's civilian appearance. "So," he said, "I don't think I caught your name."

Not yet ready to give up the game, Starfire mustered as much deception as her guilt would allow. "Kory," she said. "Kory Anders."

"Well, Kory, Kory Anders," Magnum said, still leaning against the window, "What would you say if I asked you to dinner?"

"I would say…" The ground beneath their feet began to tremble, cutting Starfire's response short. Behind Magnum, she saw a dark shadow growing on the opposite side of the glass, obscured by the white glaze baked into the store's expansive marquis. The quivers came in short, quick bursts, like the pounding of a rapid heartbeat. Somewhere on the other side, through the thick glass haze, she saw a spark of pinkish light flicker in to existence and grow with alarming speed. "Look out!"

Magnum frowned. "Look out? That—"

The window exploded inward, becoming a thousand razor edges propelled by magic energy the color of cherries. Starfire and Magnum both flew back into the bookcase behind them, toppling along with it. Screams of panic arose all over the store as one bookcase fell into another, creating a large game of dominos that trapped many patrons beneath hundreds of pounds of oppressive literature. The sleepy bookstore became a scene of pure chaos and panic in the space of a heartbeat, chaos which Mammoth reveled in as he and Jinx stepped through the jagged entrance she had created in the window.

"Never thought I'd be in a book store," he growled through a smile, surveying the disarray their arrival brought to such a boring little locale. A mob of terrified people made a break for the store's front door off to the side, only to find a tiny terror by the name of Gizmo looming over their escape on his steely spider legs.

Gizmo stopped his cackling long enough to double-check the strange box his grubby little hands clutched. If he read the readout right, they had just hit paydirt. "Hey, morons," he called to his teammates, "The scanner says that she's in here. Let's make this quick." To the trembling masses beneath his elevated feet, he cried, "BOO!" and then cackled at their shrieks and backpedaling. It felt so good to be back at work.

Jinx stepped around her enormous companion to get a better sense of their surroundings. With the majority of the bookcases knocked flat at their entrance, she could see all the way to the back of the store. A couple of explosive hexes obliterated the emergency exits at the back, burying them behind mountains of plaster and studs caved in from the ceiling.

A moment's search didn't reveal the Titan they sought. At first, she wondered if she lay beneath one of the toppled bookshelves. She could hear any number of pathetic wails for assistance coming from the sheep already trapped beneath them now. 'No,' she decided, 'Not likely.' Begrudgingly, Jinx had to admit that Starfire was too quick and too tough to be taken out by such a sloppy attack. But she didn't see the bitch anywhere.

"You're sure?" she called back at Gizmo. "You might be reading that doodad wrong, you know."

Gizmo sneered back at her as he herded the huddled masses further away from the door, where they would be easier to watch. "Just because you can't find your flabby ass with both hands doesn't mean I'm a total dim, too. She's here."

"I don't see her," grunted Mammoth, unconcerned at pointing out the obvious.

Jinx glanced around. The pair of people nearest to them caught her eye; they lay atop a downed bookcase, a boy and a girl in their mid-teens, and coughed up the plaster dust that hung in the air. "No," agreed Jinx. "So we'll make her come out." Raising her hand and her voice, Jinx called forth a crackling storm of pink fury above her head. Just an impressive light show, it nevertheless quieted the contemptible whimpers of the bookstore patrons. "Listen up," she shouted. "We're looking for Starfire. We know you're here." Looking up, she gave Mammoth a nod.

It was all the encouragement her companion needed. With two quick strides, he reached the teenaged pair closest to them. The girl stood first, looking ready to try and stop Mammoth in an insane burst of bravery. His booted foot put a stop to that, knocking her away and drawing a startled yelp from her rosy lips. The boy tried to roll away, only to come right into Mammoth's massive grasp. Sausage fingers wrapped around the boy's golden brown neck and lifted him clean off the floor, holding him up for the rest of the gathered hostages to see. Mammoth's thumb sat at the top of the boy's spine, cocked and ready to break the boy's head off with minimal effort.

"You've got thirty seconds, Starfire," Jinx told their unseen prey. "After that, we start killing people."

**To Be Continued**


	17. Anniversary: Lies

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Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

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**Anniversary**: _Lies_

_"As Tom Robinson gave his testimony," Robin read, "It came to me that Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years."_

_Starfire sat atop the velvety, violety folds of her new bed. Her legs jittered over its side with rapt excitement as Robin read from the book she had chosen herself. The disappointment she had felt at discovering that the bird on its cover was no robin had ceased to be when the world of Maycomb came to life and invited her to take part in its adventure. Eyes closed, she tried to imagine the courtroom exactly as it would have been almost an Earth century ago. Images from the pictocube in Ops helped somewhat. She could have asked Robin to approximate the room for her, but disliked the notion of interrupting his engaging voice from its story._

_As it turned out, she needn't have worried; Robin's voice faltered of its own accord. "When Atticus…" and he stopped with unnatural pause that pulled Starfire's eyes open. "When Atticus asked…" She looked over at Robin as he cursed under his breath, seated next to her with the book seated atop his legs. His gloved fingers worked at the bridge of his nose just beneath the edge of that accursed mask of his. "Sorry," he said, breaking her narrative dream. "Give me a minute."_

_Concern, not annoyance, shone in Starfire's eyes. "Robin," she asked, "You are ill-functioning?" He had been igniting copious amounts of nocturnal petroleum in his endeavor to bring their headquarters to operational status. Oftentimes, Starfire would retire to her sleep cycle, bidding him goodnight as he worked on a project, only to awaken the next day-cycle to find him still at work on that same task._

_It seemed that all his efforts were catching up to him. "I'm okay, Kory," he insisted weakly. "My eyes are just tired, that's all."_

_"You have been working hard." The understatement seemed to Starfire like saying that the noxious tar pits of Gorkon Twelve smelled bad. But at his repeated and infuriating refusal of her offered help, what else could she do? "Perhaps it would be best if we saved our book for next Wed-ness Day night," she suggested glumly._

_Robin kept the book firmly in his lap, despite her tugging to the contrary. Though she could have easily taken it from him, Starfire allowed him to retain the book. "No way," he said. "This is the first chance I've had to catch my breath all week. Besides, I said I'd help you learn English." An unusual display of uncertainty infected his face. "This is helping, right?"_

_Starfire smiled. "Yes, Robin," she assured him. "Our time spent together has aided my instruction in your language a great deal."_

_A small laugh chased his doubt away. "It's not hurting mine, either," he agreed. "Before this, I had no idea what a chiffarobe was."_

_They chuckled together for a moment before his laughter became a gaping yawn. Her concern returned as he smothered his yawn closed into sheepish silence. "But the fact remains," she argued, "That you are too tired to read."_

_"Just my eyes," he countered, and then, "I mean, not really." At her doubting look, he added, "Logan got bored and decided to play stickball with one of the cyber-nodes. I had to reprogram most of its security subroutines manually. Took hours. Wasn't great for my eyes, either." Another yawn pulled at the corners of his mouth. He fought as best he could, destined to lose to the impulse._

_"I see." Starfire took hi next yawn as opportunity, and lifted the book from his lap and placed it on her own. Her lips worked a few words in silent practice while he finished his massive yawn, and felt ready by the time he was done. "Ah…As Tom Robin…Robinson gave hes tes…testimoe…test-i-moe-nee…"_

_Robin's jaw hung slackened as Starfire stumbled her way into a slow, even pace. When a word gave her problems, she would feel her way through it, until it became familiar to her, and its meaning surfaced in her recollections. She took open delight in his shock as she conquered the first page and moved to the second. "Kory," he said, lost for words. "You can read?"_

_She gave him a brief look, expressing appreciation as the foremost of a thousand other emotions. It pleased her to no end when he sat back, resting his head against her pillows and allowing Starfire to weave the tale. An hour after she began, Starfire felt doubly accomplished as she spied the even rise and fall of Robin's chest. She knew he was asleep, despite the wide, untrustworthy lenses of his mask. She covered him in her sheets for a well-earned rest, kissed him atop his forehead, and went to seek a quiet corner of the new Tower to finish their book._

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"Come on, Starfire," Jinx snapped at the crowd of cowering hostages, "We haven't got all day."

The scene at _Nook for a Book_ throbbed with terrible, terrifying tension at the Troika's direction. Mammoth stood behind Jinx in the rubble of his entrance through the storefront window, clutching their bargaining chip by his neck and wearing the grim smirk of an executioner who enjoyed his work a great deal. Above them, the tiny Gizmo loomed on his steely spider legs. He alternated between sweeping an oversized cannon's muzzle across the mewling patrons-turned-prisoners of the store, and smacking the side of a handheld scanner which didn't quite match the style of his other tech. Among the toppled bookshelves, their future victims all cowered in fear. All but one.

Gizmo snarled and threw the alien scanner to the ground. It made a satisfying _crunch_ at the tip of his stomping spider strut. "I can't pinpoint her," he snarled, "But I know Sherbet Face is here somewhere." His free hand became occupied with a second cannon, larger than the first, which holed a display stand with a smoldering beam of red death and drew panicked wails from the crowd.

"I'm gonna count to ten, Titan," Mammoth grunted. He waggled his hostage, enjoying the grunts and squirms coming from the boy's constricted throat. "Then I snap this spick's neck."

"You can count to ten?" sneered Gizmo.

Mammoth shot, "Shut up," and then swung his hostage back out toward the crowd. Legs dangling, the teenaged boy pulled uselessly at Mammoth's enormous grip, not quite choking, but trapped nonetheless. Never one for empty threats, the towering Troika began his count. "One…Tw—"

"Stop." A member of the crowd, a girl Mammoth had bowled over during his entry, pulled herself from a heap of books. She strode to the front of the trapped throng with a regal gait, head held high, chest puffed out in indignation, green eyes aglow with biting fury. Her ginger hair streamed out behind her determined pace, yet she did not appear hurried, only purposeful. "I am Starfire," the teen said. "Let him go. Now."

The Troika gaped at this stranger's audacity. Certainly, there were similarities between the helpless civilian and their Titanic nemesis, but certain incongruities existed that Gizmo was the first to point out. "You're not Starfire," he said. "Starfire's orange!"

A bolt of green volleyed into his ill-prepared chest as answer, projected from her palm. Gizmo squealed as the shot carried him high in to the air and slammed him into the opposite wall, where he bounced and fell to the floor, silenced. Gaining a moment from Jinx's and Mammoth's resultant shock, the girl touched her wristwatch and shifted her lithe body into a well-practiced battle stance. Her skin tone hiccupped and then darkened, swallowing most of her eyebrows as it became burnished gold, while the green in her irises bled throughout the rest of her eyes. Fully transformed, dressed for a quiet night on the town, Starfire stood ready to face the Titans' grudge rivals with no fear of the tilted odds.

In a rare display of level-headedness, Mammoth jangled his living doll between the remainder of the trio and their target. "Nu-uh," he tsk'ed, juxtapositioning the teen's head with his own. "Back off," he growled, "Or he dies."

"Hey, Asshole." The hostage croaked and glared at his captor, still clinging to Mammoth's t hick fingers lest his neck snap. As Mammoth looked over, his hostage raised a hand and touched a finger to the bridge of the villain's nose. "I'm not Latino," he hissed through his constricted airway, "I'm Hmong."

The force of a freight train barreled through the hostage's finger and struck Mammoth square in his face with a blast of tactile telekinesis. Invisible and silent, the blow's only herald was the sound of Mammoth's nose breaking down the middle as his head snapped back. His hand opened, allowing Magnum to drop to the ground and roll in Starfire's direction, eager to escape the avalanche of muscle which shook the floor with its descent.

Magnum scrambled to his feet as Starfire's side. A cool hand swept his disheveled hair into an equally messy, apparently trendier array in an attempt to recapture his composure. "You've 'heard' of me, huh?" he groused at her.

A series of starbolts kept Jinx busy enough for Starfire to answer, "I merely wanted to avoid your undesirable advances without hurting your feelings."

Laser fire from an awakened and enraged Gizmo forced Starfire into Magnum to avoid being cooked on the spot. She lifted him from the ground, but not before he scooped up an armload of ammo. A hail of books flew at Gismo, tele-hurled to obscure the heroes and force Gizmo back. "I see," snapped Magnum. "Lying to me is so much better than breaking my heart."

Scythes of pink magic sliced through their path, forcing a midair u-turn for Starfire and whiplashing Magnum. Below them, Jinx kept up a steady stream of hexes, tearing apart the ceiling in her unrelenting pursuit of the airborne pair. Plaster fell like snow, blanketing the ruins of the store and those victims caught on the scene in choking white drywall.

"I did not lie," Starfire said unconvincingly. "I…merely omitted—"

Another hex stole the tips of Magnum's spiked locks. "Can this wait? We've got some ass to kick." To the gawkers below, he added, "What are you people waiting for? This is a super battle, get the hell out of here!"

Formerly frozen with fear, the civilians now flooded out of the store in screaming panic. The stampede confused Gizmo and Jinx, who lost sight of their enemies in the clouded air. They let the minnows escape unopposed; theirs were bigger fish to be fried. A minute later, the ruins of _Nook_ wallowed in absolute stillness. Only Mammoth's soft moaning in the corner broke the silence.

Jinx nodded for Gizmo to begin checking in one direction while she would walk in its opposite. He answered with a rude gesture, but complied. Turning, Jinx listened for signs of the wretched do-gooders between the methodical clacking of her designer boots against the floor. "You should give up, Twinkle Star," called Jinx to the empty air. Rows of bookshelves, still upright and intact, revealed nothing yet to her. "There's no way out except through us. Your friends won't get here in time to save you, and you know the police don't stand a chance against us."

"Will you cram a cauldron in it already?" Gizmo shouted back from his perch atop his mechanical limbs. His search had been as fruitless as her own so far. "We're trying to find her, not bore her. Less Hannibal and more Sherlock, airhead."

The whiney protest went ignored. "It's a shame you brought that trashy freak in on this," lamented Jinx, walking down a row of mystery novels in search of her quarry. "I hope you're at least putting out for him, for all the trouble you've gotten him into. If you give up now, maybe we'll let your boyfriend live."

An entire bookshelf of action/adventure pulp fiction leapt at Jinx without warning. The witch had no time to evade, and took the brunt of the impact with a bleated yelp. Screeching against torn carpet and the concrete beneath it, the bookshelf sandwiched Jinx against the far wall, effectively trapping her.

Magnum stood in the shelf's wake with fingers still raised, and panted. His brow dripped with the exertion of telekinetically shoving eight hundred pounds of mediocre literature across a room. "Been hittin' the books hard lately, huh, bitch?" he taunted.

The hum of a proton blaster in his ear cut his brazen attitude short. Heat wafted from its barrel and singed the hairs from Magnum's neck as Gizmo pointed it at the back of the Streetbeat's head. Gizmo's voice oozed from above, "Don't move a stinkin' muscle, scud monger, or I'll turn your face into a crater from the backside of your head."

Emerald heat enveloped Gizmo's weapons, melting them into slag and burning through his protective gloves. Gizmo shrieked and relinquished his ruined creations. Clutching his hand, he glanced up in time to see a sandaled foot overtake his vision before it pounded into his face and launched him into the air. His limbs, mechanical and otherwise, flailed about before gravity mercifully reclaimed him and slammed him into the _Nook_'s Sci-Fi section.

"Took you long enough," Magnum complained to the glowing beauty as she touched down. He felt at the back of his neck, checking his precious new hairdo for protonic damage. "Gonna squash that little shit 'f he messed up my locks."

Starfire afforded him the barest of glances. "You are undamaged," she informed him. If only she could say the same of the store. "Why did the Troika wish to capture me?" Guilt dripped from every word as she picked up a charred copy of _To Kill a Mockingbird_, and brushed at its cover. Sadness trickled through her guilt as the dead eyes of the mockingbird stared back. "This is all my fault," she murmured.

"Ah," scoffed Magnum, "Don't sweat the small stuff, Star Girl. They came, they saw, we conquered. 'S what insurance's for." Satisfied that his hair would cut the mustard, he placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and let it linger much longer than was appropriate. Starfire didn't even seem to notice. "You gonna be okay?" he asked. "Need a hug? Maybe a quickie?"

The grip on Starfire's shoulder vanished as a backhand stole Magnum from the scene. Mammoth's follow-through slammed Magnum up, up and away, and through an unbroken pane in the storefront, where he disappeared outside in a hail of razor glass. Starfire whirled about as the leviathan's shadow pooled over her. Blood dribbled from his misshapen nose, which now loomed over her, set between glaring eyes. Behind him, Gizmo rose from the rubble on metallic wings and a tail of blue flames. Jinx had already worked her way around the shelves. Her eyes crackled with pink fury.

Starfire backed away as the Troika advanced on her in a tight formation. "What say we try this again," Jinx growled, cradling the mother of all hexes between her palms.

**

* * *

**

"Stay sharp, everyone. There's no telling how this will go."

Robin headed the Titan's formation atop the Tower. His blank eyes scanned the bottom of the overcast night sky. Yellowing urban light rebounded from carpeting clouds, giving Jump City an angelic blanket to sleep beneath. Its fraying edges teased the top of the Tower, seemingly within reach of Robin's gloves. He resisted an impulse to tuck the city in.

"Is anyone else weirded out by all this?" asked Beast Boy from behind Cyborg's shoulder. The green shapeshifter jittered all throughout his body as he eyed the untrustworthy sky. "I mean, we're about to go up against an alien."

Cyborg grimaced and rolled his eye. "We live with an alien, Salad Head. She ate the last of the Lucky Charms this morning."

A despondent breath wafted out of Terra's downturned mouth. "Yeah," she gloomed. "She also totally ruined our surprise. We really blew it."

"You have no idea." Silent reproach piled high on Robin's forehead. He kept his eyes glued above them. Anxiety worked over the lining in his stomach into anticipatory gymnastics, testing his focus, but it gave him something to think about other than his gross breach of Starfire's trust and friendship.

"She seemed pretty upset about it," continued Terra. The geokinetic's skyward face adopted confusion at her recollection. "I guess she doesn't like surprise parties, or something. Hope she and Raven are okay." The confusion vanished, replaced with worry. She hugged her chest as a stiff ocean breeze nipped through her inadequate uniform.

Beast Boy snorted. He, like the others, missed the cringe in Robin's jaw. "Man, who knows? For all we know, they use parties on Tamaran to spank their kids, or some other weird hoo-hah like that."

Cyborg couldn't help but laugh at the thought. "Yeah," he chimed in, "Or maybe surprise parties are Tamaranian foot-shaving rituals."

"Kory wasn't upset because of the party," barked Robin to the cloudy night. The boy's good-natured snickering shriveled beneath the intense cold in the Teen Wonder's voice. With clenched, shaking fists, he broke his gaze from the sky and crushed his lenses between reproachful eyes. "We lied to her," he said. "We lied to Starfire."

Confusion retook some ground in Terra's facial battlefront. "Wait, what?" She shook her head. "I remember some weak fibs and lame excuses. But even Starfire isn't flighty enough to buy those."

Robin's jaw clenched tighter. Flighty? Is that how Terra saw her? Robin could spend hours thinking up ways to illustrate Starfire's character with millions of words. 'Flighty' would never fit the girl he watched learn fluent English in less than three months, and rewire a television to receive military broadcasts because she thought it was a malfunctioning communicator, and any of a thousand other phenomenal things that kept her always near the forefront of his thoughts.

"Tamaranians don't fib," he explained. "They don't color the truth, or tell white lies. There's no distinction in their culture." Graveled guilt tore at his voice, and made the words grate at this throat. "It's deception. And deception is saved for the vilest of their enemies."

Beast Boy at the revelation. Accordingly, he didn't get it. "You mean they don't lie on her home planet?"

"No," said Robin. "I mean; lying is one of the lowest things you can do on Tamaran. It's anathema. There's nothing worse than concealing true thoughts and feelings, especially," he added, "From those you care about."

"Oh." Terra pursed her lips in pursuit of a proper response, but the right words eluded her. "Oh," she said again.

"So when we fibbed to Star about our little shindig," Cyborg intoned with a scowl, "What we really did was the Tamaranian equivalent of slamming the door in her face?"

Robin nodded. "That's about it."

"But if you knew," Terra said, "Why did you…y'know?" She worked her hands together, recalling Starfire's troubled face in a new light. The confusion and hurt on those golden features no longer mystified her. She half-wished that they still did. It took a pretty low person to make Starfire feel bad. "How could you, Robin? Starfire is…"

That very question had plagued Robin ever since he had entrusted Starfire's distraction to Raven. Why? Because she had caught him off-guard; because he wanted the surprise to remain intact; because he had put too much work into this for it to fall through at the finish line; because of a whole slew of other reasons that couldn't possibly stand up to the heartbreaking accusation of betrayal haunting him from the memory of her perfect green eyes. Every excuse evaporated when he realized what his little, cultural slip might have cost him.

Questionable luck tugged at Jump City's heavenly blanket, stealing Robin's coming answer and returning the whole of his focus back to the sky. "Everyone on your toes," he barked. "He's here."

From the overcast sky came a wide, black-bellied shape that trailed wisps of cloud as it descended in a narrow arc toward Titans Tower. Long cylinders tipped with sputtering fire propelled it forward from the ends of fat wings. It moved with obvious gracelessness at cross-purposes with gravity. Its flat bottom faced the Titans at all times, denying them any real assessment of its power or potential until it came down atop their heads.

For a moment, the gathered heroes wondered if the trundling ship would plow straight through their home without stopping. But the squeal of some unseen generators began negating the planet's omnipresent grip. The black belly slowed, becoming evidently patchwork as it closed with the top of the Tower. Large sections of the ship had been covered with mismatched metal plating, riveted and welded by a sloppy hand to keep the ship going. Bathed in the shrill squeak of antigravity drives, the Titans examined this new arrival with mixed reactions of unease and distaste.

One of the riveted seams snapped and hissed before lowering a section of the ship to the roof on pneumatic hinges. Robin's team tensed as sickly blue light trickled from the new ramp. A hiss different from that of the machinery hovering above their heads echoed from the opening, preceding its owner. "You are, ahhhh, the Robin who has called me to this, shhhh, planet?"

Ignoring the edgy looks from his friends, Robin called back, "Yes. You are Zorblarth the Obdurate?"

A serpentine silhouette slithered from the depths of the ship and onto the ramp, bulging at the middle and draped in a cloak of alien silks. Parchment eyes infested the center of its bobbing head. The creature pushed itself into the light of the towers flood lamps on a thick, winding tail. Saffron scales peeled from its body and face, which offered the Titans a wide, fanged smile.

"I, wshaa, am he," he said with a polite bend at his bulging belly. "Pardon my appearance," Zorblarth hissed. "I am in the middle of my molting cycle." He patted his midsection. "It always makes me, oohhh, peckish."

Terra eyed the bulge. For a moment, it looked as though a four-fingered hand clawed at Zorblarth's skin from the inside with desperate terror. "Super," she said, choking back bile.

"No time for pleasantries," Robin insisted, stepping forward. His green glove flexed with opened expectance as he stopped before the strange creature. "Let's just conduct the exchange and go our separate ways."

Zorblarth shook his melon-sized head. "Is such rudeness, ahhhh, always this common on your planet?" His spindly arm dug inside his cloak and withdrew a small box, offering it to Robin. When the Teen Wonder reached for it, Zorblarth snatched it away. "Your orbiting meta-friends were especially rude," he said with cunning on his snakelike face. "I think that increases the price, no? Kaahh, I think so, yes."

Rather than scowl, Robin smiled and stepped back. "Think of the League as Earth's customs depot," he suggested to the merchant. "They're part of the deal. I'm sorry if you felt put out, but…" His voice became steel wrapped in velvet. "The price stays the same."

Zorblarth shook his head. "Do not presume too much, shhhh, humon," he cautioned his client. "First-time customers should concern themselves with ingratiating themselves to dear old Zorblarth, not dictating terms. Besides, I have yet to, muhhh, see my payment."

The smile on Robin's face took a smug turn. He nodded back at Cyborg. Knowingly, Cyborg punched in a command on his arm, and led the other Titans in stepping back. At his silent command, the section of the roof between Robin and his friends split apart into a wide, black chasm, the depths of which shrank to nothing as the bottom of the service elevator clanked upward, coming to rest flush with the remainder of the roof. Eight clean, unmarked metal barrels sat in a neat configuration atop the lift, covered and waiting.

Robin led the beaming alien over to the drums. "Eight hundred kilograms," he said, lifting the edge of one lid. The smooth face of packed white powder glistened beneath, the sight of which threatened to pop Zorblarth's fangs out of his mouth with an impossibly wide smile. "Go ahead," coaxed Robin, "Try some."

Zorblarth dipped a careful claw into the barrel and touched it to his forked tongue. An immediate shudder of pleasure rolled down his lengthy body. He tried to take a second sample, but Robin snapped the lid closed, denying it to him. Disenchanted, Zorblarth withdrew his rejected hand and said, "It's probably, hhaaa, cut."

"It's pure," countered Robin, "And you know it. Now let's do this."

Grumbling, the alien begrudgingly handed over the box, which Robin took with a satisfied nod. A brief glisten of green danced on Robin's cheeks upon opening it, before he clapped the box shut and placed it in a pocket on his belt. "Lobo was wrong about you humons," noted Zorblarth as he checked his other barrels for possible reasons to complain. "For hot-bloods, you're actually quite, aahhh, shrewd."

The Teen Wonder grunted. "So glad you approve." He chucked a thumb skyward. "You'd better hurry out before our military gets edgy. Extraterrestrials don't have a great reputation on Earth."

A beam of light shot from the bottom of Zorblarth's ship and enveloped the barrels. Their outlines blurred under the orange barrage, eventually vanishing altogether as the light winked out. The old snake shook his head and examined the colorful earthlings before him. "A poor attitude for a planet to have," he lamented. "I see much, shhhh, potential in this planet. The mineral rights alone…" The ruminations carried him back to his ship, which swallowed him with a mechanical whirr. Moments later, the patchwork ship made back for the clouds with groaning hull and struggling engines.

The Titans didn't relax until his ship had vanished. As its underbelly slid back into the clouds, a collective breath escaped Cyborg, Terra, and Beast Boy. "What a creep," Terra muttered, eyeballing the sky as if afraid the merchant would turn back around. "I hope all that was worth it."

Robin felt the tug of the weight in his belt, and smiled. With a little luck and a dash of charm, it would go a long way toward fixing his problem with Starfire. "It was," he assured her.

As they walked back to the roof hatch over Ops, Beast Boy asked, "Hey, um, what was that stuff we traded him? He seemed pretty jazzed to get it."

The entry code peeped from the control panel beneath Robin's practiced fingers. He felt a sense of accomplishment at having not crushed the keypad with his new, ever-increasing strength. "Sugar," he said offhandedly.

Beast Boy blinked as his friends cracked the Tower's entry hatch and descended into Ops. "You're kidding me," he said, knowing full well that Robin was not. It was common knowledge that Robin had no sense of humor. Why else wouldn't he laugh at any of Beast Boy's jokes? "Huh," grunted the shapeshifter as he followed. "Go figure."

All questions of the offworld value of sweetener disappeared once he joined the rest of them in Ops. The new line of inquiries belonged to Robin, and he compiled them into a single, effective word: "Raven?"

Their sorceress sat curled up on the couch with a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore opened in her lap. Head tilted down at its pages, Raven glanced up through the sheen of violet indifference dangling from her creased forehead and returned his question with equal eloquence: "Robin."

Cyborg stepped forward before his fuming friend had the chance to do something regrettable. "Raven, weren't you supposed to be distracting Starfire right now?" Terra and Beast Boy echoed his confusion, while Robin just stood b and steamed.

Clarification only brought a look of indifferent contempt to Raven's face. "I already did," Raven said, turning the page of her book. "I sent her out of the Tower. Told her to go away, come back in a few hours." A shrug rippled the folds of her cloak. "Problem solved."

Throwing Starfire out of her own home? Robin couldn't believe it. Is that what Raven called taking care of things? At her reluctance (more like flat-out refusal) to participate in the party's preparations, Robin had assigned Raven the easiest task of all, one he would have done himself if not pressed for time. And Raven couldn't even be bothered to spend time with Starfire so that they might—

Red lights and blaring klaxons filled Ops with urgency and tore Robin's thoughts asunder. Computer monitors came to life, displaying maps, statistics, reports, and other things he didn't want to deal with at the moment. "Looks like we've got other problems," noted Cyborg with a crack of his metallic knuckles.

"Perfect," growled Robin.

**

* * *

**

Books crashed like water against shoals at Mammoth's monstrous fists as they pounded after Starfire. The alien princess darted between his blows, but could not escape them completely; between Gizmo's air superiority with the auto-cannons mounted on his wings, and the waiting hexes of Jinx, Starfire couldn't risk exiting the melee without being torn to pieces. Mammoth missed her head by mere inches, tearing apart a solid metal bookshelf in one blow and reminding her that staying in the melee wasn't a grand idea either.

Jinx's hand shook with a curse powerful enough to turn Starfire into a pretty, pink memory. She braced the spell with an added hand at her wrist, swinging it about to track the Titan as Mammoth chased her all over the store. "Baran," she snarled, "Get out of the way. I need a clear shot."

Starfire answered the careless words with a green bolt, plugging Jinx in the stomach. The witch fell back with a grunt. Cherry sparkles trailed behind her as the spell in her hand dissipated, creating localized chaos as book all around her exploded into a cloud of literary confetti.

But the moment's distraction cost Starfire a great deal. With a stationary target shooting at his teammate, Mammoth had all the opportunity he needed to swing a double-fisted hammer blow down at the Titan. Starfire caught his fists and strained mightily against several tons of pressure, but her alien strength wasn't enough to win the contest. The foundation beneath her feet began cracking as Mammoth's hand inched closer to her head.

"Give up, girlie," Mammoth grunted through a twisted grin. The creaking of the delicate bones in her hands encouraged him to double his efforts. Reward came in the form of a yelp and a grimace from Starfire. Mammoth could scarcely wait to hear her skeleton compress like an accordion. "I'm bigger and stronger than you. You know you can't beat me."

Starfire's knees began to buckle, and her arms bent inexorably toward defeat. "Yes," she agreed in a shaky voice, eyeing his tilted center of balance. "I also know basic anatomy."

A hollow, hideous _whump_ of bone on flesh accompanied the ballooning of Mammoth's eyes when Starfire tucked her shin up between his legs. Tons of pressure on Starfire's frame transformed into nothing in the space of a tortured squeak. The Titan fancied that she heard the creak and moan of a toppling tree in the background to help Mammoth in his floor-shaking flop into a heap atop strewn books and rubble.

Starfire took no victory in the moment. Instead, her subdued cheer died in her throat as a pulse of scorching energy tore into her back. Ignoring the odorous agony of her own burning flesh, she turned to face Gizmo's next shot, and so missed the hex Jinx conjured into her ribs. The blow staggered her, giving Gizmo plenty of time to line up his next shot.

Wind whistled in her ears before the sound of bookcases shattering beneath her spine overcame her senses. Starfire pounded through one, two, three rows, and wound up buried beneath a laden shelf. Galaxies spun in her eyes beneath a mountain of Chicken Soup.

A shrill cackle rose above the pain ringing throughout her body. "Like that, slut? Not so tough without those other crud-munching slobs, are you?"

The suffocating darkness vanished with a sweep of Jinx's pale hand as she cleared the books away from Starfire's face. "I would love to finish you off right now," Jinx told the Titan. Leaning over, she teased Starfire's cheek with a crackling touch, leaving pink welts in her golden skin. "You have no idea how tempting it is," breathed Jinx. Then her hand withdrew. "But we have something even better in mind."

Panic overcame Starfire's addled brain as she saw a pair of electrified restraints extend from behind Gizmo's back on the end of a telescoping pole. Her body refused the commands her mind demanded of its battered bones. A mountain of books pinned her to the floor. She had one chance left: 'Righteous fury,' she thought, and squeezed her eyes shut. 'Righteous fury. Righteous fury!'

"_Um, tell you the truth…" Cyborg said, and then proceeded to lie to Starfire's face._

_"Just leave the tower," Raven said, casting her out with trademark coldness Starfire had never truly understood and now felt knifing into her heart._

_"Something's come up. Important business," said Robin, lying with each word. _

Something had come up; her friends didn't care a single iota about her anymore. They felt the need to lie to her, trying to spare her feelings and instead shattering them. They didn't want her around, they wanted her out of the tower, they plotted a celebration she could not take part in, they didn't want her anymore, they didn't want her, they didn't—

Green radiance swallowed the literary pile that pinned Starfire to the ground and belched out blackened ash into Jinx's and Gizmo's faces. Unsatisfied, the energy continued on from there, spreading in a pulse that overtook first their row, then their section, and finally the entire store itself. The two Troika rode an emerald wave back, wailing as mutated solar energy nipped at their fronts with searing heat and shoved them roughly into opposite walls. Centered at the explosion, Starfire's voice echoed off the walls in energized waves that peeled the drywall from its studs. Righteous fury filled the _Nook_, blackening everything in the store and setting books everywhere aflame.

The ashen remains of her literary prison poured from Starfire's tattered blouse. The silken white fabric, however little still remaining, hung in grayed ruins. Exhaustion stabbed into the pit of her stomach, but the desperation within her still burned hot. Dizzily, she rose from the ruins of her haven and flew for the door with all of the speed she could muster.

Jinx tore herself free from the twisted slag of a bookcase in time to see Starfire's feet disappear out the door. A dark smile plagued the witch's face. All according to plan. "You're up, Kermit," she muttered.

Starfire found comfort in the open air, though not much, and aimed herself at the overcast sky. It felt as though liquid metal pumped in her veins. The ground pulled mercilessly, slowing her ascent, tiring her further. Because of this, a pair of propelled prongs had no problems catching up to her and burrowing deep into her thigh.

Pure electricity flooded Starfire's body, cutting her shriek into a stunted squeak as her body seized up. Every muscle cramped into painful knots and froze, useless. The stunning agony forced joy from her thoughts and plunged her downward. 'Joy,' she screamed to her psyche as the world pinwheeled at her. 'Joy! Puppies, kittens, mustard, Robin—'

That last thought plunged her face-first into the street. She heard the screech of traffic as yellow lines pulverized her nose before yielding to it. Tar and concrete geysered from Starfire's new crater, sending cars skidding from the road's center to avoid hitting one of their city's saviors. They continued swerving with honking panic when a large green shape leapt to the crater's edge, heedless of the dangers of traffic.

Starfire pushed against the blackness that smothered her eyes, refusing to go quietly into that good night. Rubble rolled off her back, spilling grit into her open, bleeding cuts, as she struggled to rise. 'I must flee. I must find the others.' Reaching for the crater's edge, Starfire pushed her head back above the surface. A waking nightmare gazed down at her, leering with fatherly affection and clutching a glowing taser in his three-fingered hand.

"Hello, little one," he said before his weapon kissed Starfire goodnight. "It's been ages."

**To Be Continued**


	18. Anniversary: Found

**

* * *

Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Anniversary**: _Found_

A swarm of vehicles poured onto Jump City's commercial block with blazing lights and screaming sirens that pierced the smoky haze they plunged headlong into. Fire engines, ambulances, patrol cars, and SWAT vans all answered the call. The sound of their approach parted crowds and cars into a narrow channel that ultimately led to the charred, hollow remains of _A Nook for a Book._

Once parked, the vehicles opened and poured forth an army of heroes ready to bring order to the chaotic scene. Kevlar-vested police began pushing the gawkers and rubbernecks back behind some unseen perimeter, which they then made visible with a barrier of impregnable yellow tape. The firefighters filled the vacuum left by the onlookers with yellow, fire-proofed suits and spray packs filled with flame retardant foam, which they used to annihilate the lingering flames that had spread outside the store. Everyday miracle workers all marched and scrambled to the tune of a single voice, which barked orders that resonated all through the disastrous situation, despite the fact that its owner still remained behind a rolled-up car window.

"Let's move it, people!" bellowed a silver-haired man in a rumpled suit as he threw open the door of his squad car. "Clear these rubbernecks out. Johnson," he shot to one of a pair of younger officers exiting the car alongside him, "Tell SWAT to stand by and stay out of our way. This is an SCU operation as of five minutes ago."

Johnson, a smooth-faced rookie that the silver-crowned man would have sworn had lied about his age to enter the Academy, jogged over to talk briefly with the Sergeant swinging out of the SWAT van with rifle already in hand. Johnson's partner, a seasoned veteran with more experience and subsequent wrinkles, hung back a moment. "Iverson's not going to like it, Lieutenant Smith," he told the old man. "He'll deploy at the first sign of trouble."

Smith scowled in tandem with Sergeant Iverson as Johnson relayed the bad news. Across the field of parked cars, Smith didn't miss the dirty look the armored SWAT sergeant sent his way as he ordered his people to hold off. "Then let's not give him any trouble to shoot at. The last thing we need tonight is gunfire near a crowd." Turning back, he surveyed the wreck of a store, feeling his own wrinkles crease and deepen even before he knew the full story. "Take a team in and sweep the store. Number one priority is finding survivors, second is finding the freak show that did this. You see anything, for God's sake, don't touch it. I want CSI in here stat to look everything over, understand?"

"What am I, green?" said O'Callaghan with a brief laugh. One look of pure venom cowed his humor, and he tugged the bill of his hat lower over his brow to escape the reproach. "I mean, yes sir. Johnson! We're going in."

The grizzled lieutenant watched his two men gather a small contingent of police before heading toward _Nook_ with weapons drawn and heads up and alert. He ran a hand across his deep wrinkles, and frowned at the day's worth of snowy stubble beneath his palm. Before forming and heading up Jump City's Special Crimes Unit, Smith would have been home on a night like this one, having dinner with his family, or helping his daughter with homework. His department was a new necessity, and the position had come with a promotion—Smith had no real regrets about taking the job. He just wished they skyrocketing rate in metatalented crime would take a break once in a while. Then maybe he could as well.

Granulated pebbles trickled from they sky and bounced off of Smith's weathered fedora, drawing his attention up. A sharp pang of pain accompanied the clenching of his stomach while he watched an immense boulder float twenty yards above his head in a controlled descent. "Oh, wonderful," he mumbled under his breath, and strode over to intercept the flying rock at its intended landing site. "Just what I need."

The boulder rumbled to a halt in the center of the road, heralded by a wave of cheers from the roped-off crowd when they recognized the passengers balanced on its back. Pavement cracked and bowed as one by one, the Teen Titans stepped off of their ride and gave a small wave to the adoring public and the grateful public servants.

Terra staggered off last, sweating and leaning against her knees. A fast breath infected her lungs, as though she had just run the mile at a personal best. She formed a glare out of her sweat-blurred eyes and shot it Cyborg's way, saying, "Can you please build us another car? That thing isn't feather light," she groused, and chucked a thumb back at their chariot, "And you guys aren't, either."

"I wouldn't have to," Cyborg countered, and reflected Terra's glare in Robin's direction, "If someone hadn't tried parking his motorcycle in my front seat. Besides," he added, "You think I can just whip up another car? I put my heart and soul into the T-Car, I can't just Henry Ford another up whenever you guys wreck one."

Terra's glare next shifted to Raven. "I still don't see why we couldn't have just poofed here."

"I am not a bus," Raven replied coolly.

Robin ignored the banter, and scanned the crime scene with a detective's eye. He noticed first that whatever had transpired had been almost entirely from within the store—glass shattered outward from the windows, and no signs of real exterior damage, both confirmed this. But the crater in the middle of the street baffled him. The mystery of it pulled him forward, until a gruff voice snapped him out of his curiosity.

"You're just going to park that in the middle of my crime scene?" Lieutenant Smith growled as he stalked up to the Titans. Sour-faced already, the aging cop deepened his scowl for his rendezvous with the teens. "What the hell is this? Don't you drop-outs have an SUV, or a submarine, or something?"

"Don't remind me," growled Cyborg as he gave Robin another unnoticed glare.

"You like it?" Beast Boy glanced back at their ride, giving the red boulder a pat. "It's an older model. Doesn't turn very well, and it's hard to park. But it's roomy—"

"Shut up." Smith grimaced, and brushed a hand over his stomach.

"Yes sir."

Smith swiveled his glower at Robin. "I may be under orders from the Mayor's Office to not interfere with you people, but that order goes both ways. Any one of you walking liabilities screws with my crime scene, I promise you," he rumbled, and jabbed a finger in Robin's face, "You'll all wish you had stuck to chess club."

The threat bounced off of Robin's impassive expression, but the creak of his clenched glove belied his stifled anger. "Raven, Cyborg, Beast Boy," he said, never taking his eyes off of Smith, "Check out the store. See what you can find." For Smith's benefit, he added, "Do your best to leave everything where it is."

"'f there's anything there, we'll sniff it out," Beast Boy assured him before morphing into an green bloodhound and trotting after his two friends, tail wagging and tongue lolling.

Terra followed a few steps behind. The ground beneath her feet trembled as thin ribbons of dust and dirt poured up out of the cracks in the street and collected around her into a swirling stream of living earth. "I'll go help with the fires," she said, and tossed a teasing look of defiance at Smith before departing.

Defeat rattled from Smith's craggy face in a sigh. He tugged his tie loose and undid the top button on his collar. "You know," he said, "I'm thinking of naming my ulcer after you kids." A pack of cigarettes appeared from behind his jacket's lapel, which he rapped smartly against his palm.

"What have we got?" Robin pulled his cape over and around his shoulders as he and Smith made their way over toward the mysterious crater.

Smith lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. Ponderous, poisonous smoke ribboned behind him as he led Robin to a halt in front of the oversized pothole. He thought of what it would cost taxpayers to fix the hole, and took a second puff from his coffin nail before answering. "Dispatch said the calls all came in at about the same time. Three metahumans busted in and started tearing up the place."

On first inspection, it didn't look like much of interest, not when compared with most meta-crime scenes' collateral damage. Roughly three feet deep, the crater could have been anything: a giant's footprint, a stray shot from an impressive arsenal… But Robin's sharp eye caught sight of a charcoal-covered piece of white, and immediately dismissed his earlier ruminations. He squatted down and surreptitiously plucked the fabric from the hole, turning it over in his hands beneath Smith's notice. Spots of red stained the silken material. "Did the witnesses ID them?" he asked sidelong to Smith.

The cop snorted twin jets of secondhand death. "Freaks and monsters aren't exactly on baseball cards. Sometimes it feels like I need a scorecard to keep all of your kind straight."

Before Robin could snap back in defense of 'his kind,' a redheaded officer called out from in front of the store, "Lieutenant, you might want to see this."

"Duty calls," said Smith, and shot Robin a dangerous look of warning before leaving him in the lurch.

Robin paid his cynicism no mind, and instead brushed the fabric in his palm with a gloved finger. On a hunch, he liberated his R-Scanner from his utility belt and ran the device's sensitive sensor across his find's red stains. The red and gold palmtop computer blatted an error message at him; though the substance displayed characteristics of hemoglobin and plasma, it didn't quite match up for human, or even metahuman, blood. Traces of some resonant energy clung to the fabric as well, polluting the collected data with general interference.

"What are you?" he muttered to the clue, holstering his R-Scanner in the meantime.

"Robin."

Cyborg's voice took hold of Robin's focus in the form of an insistent shout from the store. Robin followed it into the bookstore, where Cyborg, Raven, and a bloodhound Beast Boy gathered in the center of the wreckage. Med techs and firefighters teemed around them, turning twisted metal bookshelves over in the search for survivors. Not much had survived the conflagration, that much was certain.

The panel on Cyborg's arm cast blue light onto the towering Titan's scowl in the darkened space as he watched Robin approach from the corner of his eye. "We've got something," he said.

His tone told Robin that the news would not be happy. "What is it?"

"I'm picking up some serious residual protonics in here." Robin wasn't as familiar with the technology as Cyborg was. That Cyborg had put some protonic devices in the late T-Car was largely the extent of his knowledge on the subject. Cyborg continued, grim-faced; "There's a lot of background interference, but it's here." An angry look crossed the techno-teen's features. "There's a pretty short list of people in the City with access to protonic technology. Even fewer people with the know-how to turn it into a weapon."

"There's only one who uses chaos magic." A glowing glare burned from the back of Raven's hood as she spoke up. The air around them chilled in her presence. "This place reeks with it."

Beast Boy's shape blurred and snapped back into that of a lanky teen. A brief sneeze cleared his sinuses of the ash and smoke still choking the air. Robin's expectant look prompted his report. "Besides the smell of barbecued books? It was definitely them." The unspoken consensus took life with his nod as he folded his arms. "They'd been drinking, too. Cheap beer and cigarette smoke all over the place. Yuck."

"Titans," Smith's voice barked through the empty storefront windows. "Get over here."

The four teens reconvened outside, joined by a soot-covered Terra, and gathered around a stretcher and two med techs alongside Smith and his redheaded officer. A battered boy with fabulous hair lay atop the bloodied sheets of the stretcher, blinking numbly at the crowding faces above his head as one of the techs pulled an emptied syringe from his arm. The injured survivor groaned and grimaced, managing to form a single word into a question. "Titans?"

"Magnum?" Terra tilted her head at the sight of the Streetbeat as she and the Titans encircled his gurney. It certainly looked like him, but better dressed and more battered since her last encounter with him.

Smith glanced around the group. "You know this kid?"

The other cop, whose uniform bore a nametag with 'O'Callaghan,' leaned over and squinted. "I think this kid tried to steal my hubcaps a few years back," he decided, rubbing his jaw and glaring down at Magnum.

A mangled groan worked past Magnum's lips. His eyes fluttered, rapidly gaining weight thanks to the painkillers just given to him. "Starfire?" he muttered. Magnum tried to sit up, but a med tech's hand on his chest eased him back onto the gurney. "Feels like I've been hit by a train. Where's Starfire?"

"She's not here," Cyborg grunted. "But you've got plenty of other Titans to talk to. What happened?"

"He's been babbling about Starfire since we found him," explained O'Callaghan with a shrug. "Some'n' about an army of giant metahumans he took on single-handedly, and your very own Sherbet Queen swooning in his arms."

At the mention of his teammate's name, Cyborg's face took on a contemplative look. He stepped back and began to fiddle with his panel on his arm once more. Heedless of his friend's withdrawal, Robin leaned in, now dominating Magnum's vision. "What happened, Magnum? Was the Streetbeat in some kind of fight here?" The mere mention of Starfire's name sent Robin's jaw into a tooth-grinding rage. His dark Gotham growl sent chills through everyone gathered, excluding Raven.

Whatever medication working through Magnum's system began blending his thoughts together into an unintelligible malt. "They came…got th' drop on us. Sucker punched me."

Super strong green gloves gripped Magnum's shoulders and shook the stupor out of him. "What were they there for?" he insisted. Robin couldn't even feel the med techs' efforts to take him off of their patient. "What did they want?"

"Her."

Robin dropped Magnum and backed away, struck at once with a fury that wiped his thoughts clean. The frigid anger worked at his innards, focusing his willpower into a deadly lance of intent aimed squarely at a familiar trio. He barely heard Cyborg speak up behind him; "I went over my scans. That background interference I mentioned? It's a starbolt energy wave."

There was no delay. "Terra," Robin growled, "Get the car." Robin whirled around, cape flowing, and stalked off. The geokinetic rushed ahead of him to prep their flying boulder. "We're done here."

Smith tossed his cigarette aside as the med techs wheeled away his witness. "Hold up," he barked as the rest of the Titans followed suit and filed out. "Where do you think you're going? What's going on?"

"We're staying out of your way," Raven muttered to him as she walked past. Though she couldn't see it, she took a small sliver of guilty delight in knowing that the aging cop's face just sprouted a new wrinkle in the middle of his furious scowl.

Up ahead, Cyborg fell into step next to Robin. "Don't you think we should come clean with the SCU?" he asked. "I mean, they should know—"

"After we've found Starfire," rumbled Robin without looking Cyborg's way. But then he stopped a moment, scowling in concentration. "And that starts with finding the Troika."

"Won't be hard," Beast Boy quipped, catching up to them. At their incredulous looks, he cracked a smile. "Dude. I just trashed a bookstore, beat up a Titan, thrashed a Streetbeat, and it's not even nine o'clock." With a wiseacre thumbs-up, he said, "It's Miller time."

* * *

_Magnificent._

_The young Centurion Skrag stared, spellbound, at the spectacle behind the force field just two kelikams in front of him. Down in the lair of the General's top scientists, a place reminiscent to most of a freakish side show, Skrag rarely found his interest piqued. Endless tables of bubbling, beakered broths and blinking computer consoles that vomited meaningless numbers bored the eager warrior. But the breathtaking sight in the containment unit before him made Skrag reconsider his assessment of his first assignment in a new light._

_A gaggle of scientists stood to Skrag's left, flanking the General himself. The old, wrinkled, scarred lizard glared through the reddened force field with his good eye, snorting at what he saw and what Skrag all but swooned over. The iris of the General's prosthetic eye whirred softly as it shifted to focus on the action offered to him by his scientists as justification for resources that could have built a battleship. "This is it?" grunted the General._

_Once scientist stepped up to the plate with datapad in hand. "Um, understand, sir, we…Well, we're still in the early stages of the experiment. A-a-and, the subjects already show an incredible affinity f-for—"_

_"All I see," said the General, keeping his mismatched eyes on the show, "Are two of my Alpha Attack Drones being wasted on a troq." His split brow raised at an incredulous angle. "Is this supposed to impress me?"_

_'No,' thought Skrag. 'It should amaze you.'_

_Within the confines of the red barriers, two fearsome combat robots squared off against a lithe, limber creature with gleaming golden skin and hair the color of blood. It floated, lighter than air, with emerald eyes much older than the young creature should have possessed. Its naked skin undulated with hidden strength. Skrag had never fought them himself, but he heard that Tamaranians were deceptively strong once you finally got them riled up. And from the looks of the scrawny example in the containment field pitted against the Armada's deadliest machines, Skrag guessed that it was getting plenty riled._

_One of the Alpha units raised its thick arm and leapt forward. Yellowish light gathered around its arm, consolidating into a wicked hard-light scythe. The soulless automaton cleaved with its lethal hologram, slashing a patch of death through the golden blur where the Tamaranian hatchling had been. Then it rocked back as the hatchling's fist caved in its monoptic visual scanner._

_The nervous scientist jabbed a finger at the Tamaranian as it tore the Alpha's arm off and beat it into scrap with the sparking appendage. "You see? …ah, sir," he added as the General's good eye swiveled its glare in his direction. "This hatchling's strength is already well beyond even Tamaranian adult standards. We've also conditioned her and her nest-sibling to survive in deep space, and—"_

_Skrag's aural fins ceased hearing the brass' conversation. Instead, he found his spirit drawn into the containment field. Already, the Tamaranian had beaten through three milikams of duranium armor with its alien strength. The Alpha's power core tore free from its casing in the hatchling's grasp, and crumpled between the young creature's fingers. But its attention lingered too long on its first kill, and so the hatchling did not see the second Alpha unit positioned behind her open fire._

_'No, little one,' winced Skrag inwardly as he watched the hatchling Tamaranian scream in anguish. Thankfully, the scientists' boasts were true, and her skin withstood the deadly lasers with only minor scorching and blistering, instead of the instant death they would give a normal Tamaranian, or even a Gordanian. Its naked skin puckered as the hatchling whirled about, raising its palms as if to ward off any further shots. 'Counterattack,' urged Skrag. 'Fight, little one, fight!'_

_And then the hatchling did something amazing. Flickering points of light came to life within its palms, growing into orbs the size of Skrag's head. With a mighty cry, the hatchling hurled the orbs into the second Alpha's chest. Fire and debris expanded from the robot, obscuring the entire containment in a smoky haze and sending all present for the test but Skrag back with a start. When the choking smog cleared from the inside of the containment unit, only the Alpha's wobbling legs remained, capped off by glowing red slag and sparking wires. The hatching coughed and heaved on its knees, clutching at its ribs and shaking fiercely, but alive nonetheless._

_"As you can see," continued the scientist, now more confidently, "Both creatures are also learning to project the energy that Tamaranians naturally metabolize from solar radiation, thanks to our, ah, humble efforts."_

_The General merely grunted, no longer scowling. It was possibly the highest praise he had given anyone under his command. "I want both creatures removed to the brig when not undergoing your treatments," he informed the scientists. "It's no longer safe to keep them here all the time. And I want them under constant guard."_

_Gazing at the creature in awed speechlessness, Skrag knew he would stop at nothing to obtain that assignment. Watching the hatchling, trembling in the confines of the scientists' containment fields, he knew that they had been drawn together. Fate demanded that he watch over this creature, that it would come to love him as much as he loved it._

_His little one._

* * *

The smell of Raktajino wafted into Starfire's dreams, pulling them apart piece by piece until all that remained was reality. Cold metal gripped her wrists and ankles and pressed into her back. Every muscle in her body ached with reckless abandon, and she couldn't quite remember why. She didn't really want to. She just wanted to go back to sleep until the world became a nicer place. 

A slurping sound prompted her tired eyes open, something she came to regret an instant later. A dreadful world of minimalist design greeted her in insufficient light, composed of harsh angles and dull gunmetal grays. A bunk hunched in the corner of the tiny room, flanked on either side by a chemical toilet and a small metal shelf with nothing on it. A table and chair lurked at the foot of the bed.

Seated at the table, Starfire's worst nightmare clutched a mug of the fragrant alien coffee, brought back to life and staring at her over the rim of his mug. Starfire felt her innards drain away, leaving her hollow and cold as she faced the worst thin to ever happen to her. The tabled creature gazed in reverent silence as she stirred, sipping at his drink.

His broad, needle-toothed mouth spread into a wide grin while Starfire struggled against her bonds. The gleam in his eye sickened her with its familiarity. She longed to tear the gleam from his sockets with her bare hands, but her shackles held fast, and a pounding dizziness kept her concentration fragmented. The only reward for her efforts was the low chuckle resonating from the back of his throat. "Look at you," Skrag said with undeserving paternal pride. "You're…beautiful."

Starfire then became aware of her undressed state, and tossed her head to one side with a humiliated blush. Modesty didn't concern her, but she felt dirty as Skrag's eyes roamed freely over the curve of her body. The void within her filled with rage, which she channeled into her eyes. If her bonds would not break, then she would burn the fat flesh from his bones with the powers those Gordanian bastards had sewn into her flesh.

…except, she could not summon the fire from her eyes. With effort, she found her hands likewise extinguished. What had he done to her?

Skrag's chuckle grew louder as her eyes flickered with faltering light. "Valiant, but futile, little one. That sedative I gave you contained a potent…" He paused, plumbing the depths of his memory. "You know, I'm not really sure what it is or how it works. Our scientists were fairly certain it would nullify the powers they worked so hard to give you." The mug of Raktajino ascended in a toast to the promethium chains circling her limbs and chest. "I do hope you're not too uncomfortable."

The fuzzy clouds packed around her brain dulled her thoughts and numbed her tongue. "Let me go," she said with as much rage as she could muster. Each thrust she rallied against her bonds drained more and more from her boundless confidence and bogged her efforts. It gave her enough frustration to gather her voice for a shout; "Let me go!"

"You've grown so much," cooed Skrag. He set his drink aside and rose from his seat with a belabored grunt. "You're more powerful than those glag-brained scientists ever dreamed. Seeing you battle those hairless apes in that bookery… You have become something more. Something unique," he told her, approaching with slow, exacting steps. His movement stuttered through his overwhelming awe, like each step in her presence was something to treasure. "Something wonderful," Skrag said onto her with fetid air that curled her nose. She could feel every word roll from his forked tongue onto her cheek.

Starfire squirmed at the feather-light touch that traveled the contours of her body, all to the tune of Skrag's appreciative hiss. His fat fingers possessed the gentility of a blind Rot Beast, and exercised none of it as they kneaded her bruised, supple flesh. "How did you find me here," she uttered, curbing her disgust only for the moment. "I thought I made my escape untraceable."

His hands disappeared, returning as a slap that jarred her world into fleeting chaos. "You ungrateful little girl," Skrag snarled with a tone opposite of its former tenderness. "Shame on you for running away like that. Your antics may have cost me my career." But Skrag's anger was brief as it was grand. The fury in his face went quickly, and his touch returned with tenderness to the site of his slap. "But none of that matters now," he murmured. "Everything is all right again. I'll take you back home and be rewarded for my loyalty and diligence. Then, things will finally be back to normal. Won't it be wonderful?"

Just the thought of it sent Starfire into a renewed fit of frenzy. She thrashed fruitlessly against the unbreakable chains binding her to the bulkhead. Skrag's hands abandoned her skin, the only real success her struggles brought her. "I will not go back!" Starfire shrieked. "I will not! You—"

Another hard slap silenced her with the taste of her own blood. "Contemptible troq," bellowed Skrag. He hit her again, and a third time. Meat and blood dripped from his claws as he drew them back for a fourth strike. "Do you know what I've been through to find you?"

Blood seeped from the cuts in her cheek and forehead into her eyes as she sobbed, "I did not want to be found!"

Deaf to her incredulous scream, Skrag began pacing back and forth in front of her place on his wall. "I've been to every known armpit in this miserable galaxy trying to find you. I consorted with…with the psychotic, hairless monkeys running amok on this cesspool of a world." A strange gleam eroded his gaze, glazing it until the rest of his expression followed in its descent. "I've had to endure the laughing stars for a stellar cycle, little one. So don't you dare disrespect me."

Starfire could see it in his eyes. She sucked in a breath as his face loomed in hers, betraying the symptoms she had heard and read about, but never seen for herself. "X'Hal," she whispered, "You are space crazy."

Skrag's backhand slammed her head up against the bulkhead, and drew from her lips a yelp that sprayed droplets of red into his face. "Never," growled Skrag, "Call me crazy. Don't you dare. I watched over you. I cared for you when no one else would."

Blood dribbled from her lips onto her heaving chest as she whipped her head back around to glare at him in baleful defiance. Waves of red cascaded behind her and into her glowing eyes. "You used me," Starfire rumbled. "You all used me, but you were the worst of them all." She cursed the tremble in her voice drawn from a thousand different memories she could never leave behind. "You justified your own sick pleasures in your warped little mind. You disgust me," she choked.

Skrag could hear the stars laughing. They laughed at the troq making sport of him in his own ship. They chortled at his cycle-long impotence, trapped at their mercy in the cold depths of space. Even through the bulkhead, he could hear their laughter, ceaseless and overwhelming. The damnable stars, they laughed in tune to the troq's shrill insolence.

"You are a monster," she screeched into his face, and tossed her head until he could no longer keep hold of her. Starfire's fingers quivered and shook, flexing as her entire body strained to reach Skrag's thick neck and choke the life from his ugly body. "And I will never be your slave again. I will be free, or—"

A trio of claws tore into her stomach, shredding her confidence into a tortured scream. Skrag howled along with her as he laid into her, beating her golden flesh black and blue. "No more," he bellowed. "No more laughter. You will learn your place, little one." Blood smeared from the tip of his claw onto his lips, which he then licked clean with lavished, mad delight. His other hand drifted to his belt, working free the clasp and loosening his armor. "I will teach you your place."

**To Be Continued**


	19. Anniversary: Freedom

* * *

******Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

******Anniversary**: _Freedom_

"Here's to the Troika," Jinx bellowed across the mouth of her frothing mug, "The heroes who just thrashed a Teen Titan, and the people who are buying you a crapload of beer!"

Approval thundered through The Hideout as Jinx drained the contents of her mug down her throat with a single go, and slammed the empty vessel down onto the stainless steel bar top. She threw her arms out and joined in the tremulous shouting as she spun atop her stool.

Her mug overflowed once more, courtesy of Scruffy. The aging bartender's hands moved as if imbued with the Speed Force as they doled out steins, mugs, cocktails, shots, and whatever else the crowd of villains could think of to put on the Troika's tab. Everyone who came to the bar offered Jinx a loud, drunken congratulation, which the witch lapped up eagerly.

Gizmo ducked beneath Jinx's sloshing mug as she brought it back to her face. Foam droplets rained down on his dome and fueled his already-impressive irritation. "Will you give it a rest, skazz whomber? You're letting these drool monkeys drink up all our profits."

Another oblong alien coin passed from Jinx's fingertips into Scruffy's expectant palm. A host of them yet jangled in her pocket, but their numbers wouldn't hold out against Jinx's alcohol tolerance if she continued drinking and buying rounds as she had been. "Will you lighten up," Jinx slurred to the Gizmo closest to her left, after a long pause to choose which of the three of him she saw to respond to. "It's called networking. Word is going to get out that the Troika is the buffest tunch around. We'll go from being bottom-feeders to the top of the A-list in no time flat."

Mammoth's dour grunt curdled her gleeful predictions after he polished off an enormous stein of cheap brew. "Don't you think we should be lying low right now?" he rumbled. "Least until the heat dies down." Even a refilling of his stein couldn't cut through the funk hanging over Mammoth's bandaged head. The tape across his broken nose made his foreboding words sound hollow and nasally. "Titans are gonna come looking for payback once they figure out what we did."

Fear snatched Gizmo's annoyed expression away and put one of disbelief in its place. "I didn't think of that," he exclaimed. "How did I not think of that?" Then he stopped, and frowned. "How did Baran think of that before I did?" He shook the question off and said, "We need to start setting up a preemptive strike. Hit 'em where they live, bring that stupid T down around their ears. We—"

"Oh, for the love of…will you listen to yourselves?" A bitter laugh cowed Gizmo and made Mammoth's face slump into a scowl. Jinx sloshed her mug in the giant's general direction, snickering. "You guys seriously need to grow a pair. We're the goddamn Troika. We're the biggest bads in this bumble scum town. A few more wins like this, and we'll be on the Justice League's radar. And that," she said with a thrust of her mug, "Is our ticket into the big leagues."

Her two boys blinked as Jinx toasted her own boast with another one-gulp salute. "You actually believe that, don't you?" Mammoth asked her.

Jinx's answer rang out in the bar, which had grown unnaturally quiet in a big hurry. "Three cheers," she slurred, waving an empty glass over her head, "To the guys who brought down a Teen Titan. Hip! Hip!"

"Hooray."

Gizmo shrieked as a metallic hand wrapped around his tech pack and lifted him from his seat. The armored fingertips dug into his pack's sides, eliciting a brief shower of sparks as the tiny terror's weapons shorted out and died. Startled by the scream, Mammoth and Jinx swiveled around to face the new danger that had finished her cheer.

Four glowering vigilantes towered over the rest of the criminal element of the bar. Terra and Raven stood on opposite flanks of their formation, arms crossed and faces card from stone into effigies of seriousness brought to life. Dark clouds gathered in the sorceress' eyes while the swirling pool of sandy earth at Terra's feet kept the ring of villains forming around them a good distance back. Beast Boy stood between the girls with a look of animalistic ferocity, half-crouched as though waiting to pounce. And clutching Gizmo, Cyborg headed the pack, shoulders squared in defiance of the remaining Troika's furious glare.

Cyborg hefted the squirming squirt of a villain without so much as a grunt of effort before tossing him over his shoulder. Gizmo flew over the crowd and bounced off of a table, ending his howling indignation with the crash of splintering wood. "So," Cyborg said, brushing his hands clean, "I think you and I have some things to talk about. Where is she?"

A wet, derisive snort blew from Mammoth's flaring nostrils and into Cyborg's face. It smelled of beer and disgust, but did not make the Titan flinch as his nemesis had hoped. "Sit on it and spin, Robot Face." Mammoth turned away from the superhero brigade and tapped the bar top with a single, massive finger.

Unfazed by the potential disaster staring him in the face, Scruffy began pouring another mug for Mammoth. In doing so, he missed the shadow to his left shift closer to the action. Looking at the newcomers, Scruffy asked, "Can I get you folks something?"

Cyborg's eye remained narrowed and on Mammoth. "You say that to my face, you walking hormonal mistake."

The mug in Mammoth's hand died in a crackling crunch of glass, spilling beer faster than Scruffy could mop it up. Mammoth swung about, already at face level with Cyborg from his seat. When he stood, he loomed over the metallic hero by more than a head. "I said that you should shove it up your aft hatch and spin it, Gear Guts." The hollow thump as Mammoth rapped his knuckled against Cyborg's casing drew a sneer to the villain's lips. "So what are you going to do about it?"

A brilliant smile lit Cyborg's face. "Nothing. I just wanted to give Robin a chance to sneak up behind you, that's all."

When Mammoth whirled back around, the crouched Teen Wonder waited for him atop the silvery counter. A look of deadly anger roosted in his features. With lightning hands, he reached out and snagged Mammoth's head on either side and slammed Mammoth's face into the bar top. The gonging impact left a bowl-sized crater before it bounced Mammoth's head in an arc that carried him off his stool and onto the floor.

In the space of a breath, Jinx found herself alone, and surrounded by Titans. But the heroes were in turn surrounded by a host of villains she had just spent an hour buying beer for. That alone kept the first tendrils of pure panic reaching up from the pit of her stomach down. "You think you're scary?" she slurred at Robin as he hopped down from the counter. "You just busted into a bar full of super villains, dumbass. What, you think you can take us all?" Violet power crackled at her fingertips, power enough to blow any hero through the wall regardless of the poison pounding in her veins.

One particularly dense villain, a bull-themed man in his late teens who went by the lackluster handle of Ox, took this as the signal to attack. He bellowed a battle cry and charged forward. A wicked axe found its way from his belt to his hand, and lifted to split a certain spiky skull in twain.

Robin reached out and grabbed Ox's harness with one hand. He pivoted on the ball of his foot, swinging his body around and taking the bullheaded villain with him. Ox's bellow became a scream when Robin released him, tossing him into a wall fifty feet away on the opposite side of the bar. The moment he impacted, a stream of solid red energy leapt from Robin's open palm and pinned Ox against the broken drywall for an excruciating moment before Robin let the wailing goon drop.

"You're probably right," grunted Robin. He cast his narrowed eyes across the crowd of horrified costumes. Red fury trailed from his gloves, and formed into the globes of energy he and Starfire had dubbed 'bird bolts.' "So, which one of you wants to take me down?"

It took eight full seconds for the bar to clear out. Half of that consisted of a solid wall of professional killers and tough men scrambling over each other to get through The Hideout's single, narrow doorway. Jinx, now alone, let the hex in her hands dissipate as the five heroes encircled her. She looked back at Scruffy, but the old bartender had already produced a vintage 'Nam helmet from behind his counter. He gave Jinx a shake of his hairy features before ducking out of sight.

A green hand glowing with power slammed onto the bar top to recapture Jinx's attention. "Everything you know," he snarled. The bar top's steel melted beneath his red hate, running down the counter's side and pooling onto the floor. The counter itself gave way like soft butter, and molded itself to fit Robin's hand. "Now," he barked.

"If you tell us," Cyborg offered helpfully, "We might be able to stop him from feeding you your own stool."

Terra added, "But I wouldn't count on it."

"G-g-green guy," squeaked Jinx. "Hired us to help him get S-starfire." Jinx's world began reeling with a combination of inebriation and fright as she tried forming the words which would save her life. "He wanted her alive," she added quickly.

"Who?" Robin's fist clenched, gathering up a fistful of the putty-like metal.

Jinx stammered, "Another alien. Don't remember his name." She combed her panicked memory for whatever few details she could come up with. "He said he was with some armada. Gordon? Gordita?"

One of the lenses in Robin's mask snapped open. "Gordanian."

"That's it," cried Jinx.

Jinx shrieked as Robin's hands extinguished and grabbed the front of her uniform. The stool beneath her disappeared with a flex of his biceps. Two soulless fields of white loomed before her eyes as Robin shoved his face into hers. "Where?" When her mouth flapped wordlessly, he began shaking her. "Where?"

"I don't know," sobbed Jinx. "He just…he just took her and left." Robin's eyes narrowed, and so she added quickly, "East! They went east after that." Her lower lip trembled, jumbling her slurred words. "Mik…Gizmo, he…he said something about the lizard's equipment. A real distinct energy signature or something."

Cyborg checked the screen on his forearm. "If it's out there, I'll find it."

The answer didn't satisfy Robin. He slammed Jinx's back against the counter mere inches from where his scorched palm print marred its polished surface. "If I find out you're lying…" he rumbled.

A metal hand on his shoulder cut the threat short. "We should go, man," Cyborg said. "Every second could count right now."

Robin released the hyperventilating villain with a grunt, and turned toward the door in a furious flourish of his cape. The rest of the Titans fell into step as their leader stalked through the darkened doorway and vanished into the shadows.

Jinx risked opening a single eye while they filed out. "You…you aren't…" she squeaked.

Beast Boy, at the tail of the pack, shot a bemused look back at her. "Sorry, Bubble Gum," he said with a shrug. "But, c'mon, you're small potatoes. See ya."

All alone in the bar, Jinx choked back a drunken sob as tears she had been holding in finally broke free. Her pale skin flushed with indignation and humiliation, but she could not cease the pathetic snivels she had denied herself in her enemies' presence. The back of her hand wiped her cheeks clean as she tried to get up, but landed instead on the filthy floor in a heap of misery. "Bastards," she whispered at the empty doorway. "Assholes. Cowards." She hung her head. "Losers."

* * *

A putrid wind blew through the towering forest of green that concealed Skrag's ship. The Centurion's nostrils twitched with the nocturnal scents of the alien world, and wrinkled his nose with repulsion. But not even the repugnant stench of this planet could break the sense of peace he carried with him now. 

'I've found it at last,' he mused, sitting atop his battered scout vessel beneath a sky of silent stars. They dared not laugh at him now, not while the little one remained in his possession. Now he commanded their respect. And yet, a strange emptiness nipped at his victory. He had succeeded in the mission his General had thought impossible. His exile would soon be over. How should he feel about that?

Skrag gazed up at Earth's lonely moon and felt sympathy for its plight. "Circling the stars," he murmured to the satellite, "Looking for that something among them to make your existence mean something…forced to endure their mockery all the while." A bitter scowl dropped his brow over his reptilian eyes. "It's a cold fate, friend. But take heart; you'll find it, if only you keep looking."

Would there be praise for his discovery when they returned? Promotions? Medals? Or would the General be scornful of the delay in Skrag's retrieval of his pet project. It did not matter to Skrag in the end, so long as something happened to change his miserable life. No longer would he be confined to the interior of his cramped cockpit, awaiting the simple response of 'Report Received' from Armada Command. Things would finally be different. And with the little one at his side, how could they possibly change for the worse?

The thought crossed his mind at the exact moment a dark shadow crossed the round, bright moon Skrag stared at. A raptor's silhouette screeched, spreading its wings and stretching its sharp talons as the cold, empty eyes set above its beak zeroed in on Skrag and his ship.

Skrag recognized the shadowy creature from images collected of his little one and her friends from the planet's communication network. He felt panic swell inside of him, and skittered to his feet against the craggy hull of his ship. The dorsal hatch sat open a few kelikams away. He did not bother with the ladder, and instead leapt down the narrow passage into the engineering section of his ship. From there, he whisked through the galley, and then into his own quarters, taking the straight line of his ship's interior at a waddling run that paused only to check on his precious cargo.

The Tamaranian hung where he had left it, wearing a numbed expression on its face. Its eyes were wide and glossy until it detected his presence. Then they snapped to attention, glaring at him, though through a great deal of fatigue. The wounds across its belly had scabbed over, and served Skrag with a modicum of guilt that he pushed aside for later. "It seems you'll be missed here as well, little one," Skrag grunted as he stalked past. "Those monkeys you befriended are coming to interfere."

"My…my friends?" squeaked the little one. New vigor found her throat as she said, "They will save me."

"I saved you," he reminded her while he typed the access code for his cockpit on the hatch panel. "Brace yourself for takeoff. We leave now."

* * *

High above, four figures rode blackened wings of pure thought made solid with the will of a fifth, cloaked being at the giant bird's center. The cloaked girl's passengers were spread out beneath her, situated in the body of the shadowy raven, while she occupied its head. The forests outside of Jump City blurred past her once, then twice, as she saw through her creature's eyes as well as her own. 

Cyborg, seated snugly next to a soul-self wing, read the screen built into his arm before glancing back down at the squat little ship hidden within the foliage beneath them. "That's it," Cyborg called out. "That's our green guy's ride."

"Well, duh," said Beast Boy from beside a drumstick. "I mean, come on. How many other spaceships have we seen lately?"

"Just the one," Terra reminded him.

"Oh. Well, yeah, but—"

"That's enough," barked Robin. His hands glowed with a furious red that seemed to interfere with Raven's soul-self; none of the blackness saw fit to coexist with the brimming bird bolts caught within his fingers. "Raven, take us down, now. Titans," he bellowed, "Go!"

Raven's soul self split the sky with a shriek before diving into the thick of the forest. Branches and treetops yielded to the soul beast's wings, raining wood down upon the unwelcome space vessel. Ten feet from the ground, Raven dissipated her avian projection, allowing herself and her friends to drop to the ground running. Even as the colossal bird faded into wisps of ether, four teenage metahumans sprinted toward the ship alongside a thundering green rhino.

"I've got y'all covered," Cyborg said. His arm mechamorphed into a sonic cannon, which he aimed at one of the spaceship's landing struts. "You guys crack the egg, and then we'll dig that yolk out and scramble him."

The terrain behind them rolled into an earthen wave. Tons of dirt and stone tore free of the ground and rose up behind Terra, forming itself into enormous hands. "Let's rock," she said. Her constructs were joined by twins made of the blackest darkness imaginable, raised by Raven's whim to tear the ship in two.

A series of turrets popped from the underbelly of the scout ship. Bolts of green plasma leapt from their barrels' tips and peppered the Titans' charge with glowing death. Cyborg took two to the chest and flew back, smashing through the trunk of an old Sequoyah. Another shot smashed into Robin's shoulder and spun him into the ground. The less impervious Titans scattered as plasma blasted the ground at their feet, creating a wall of superheated dirt.

Robin rolled up onto one knee, ignoring the huge chunk of his uniform missing. "No!" he screamed, before roaring retro-jets blasted him back. The landscape curled and blackened as the ship lifted off, crashing forward through old-growth trees as it slipped its earthly bonds. "Starfire!"

Without hesitation, Robin leapt from his knees and soared high into the treetops. Branches gave way to his fists, breaking like toothpicks. He soared higher than he ever thought possible, and caught up with the scout ship before gravity could reassert itself over him. His fingers dug into the vessel's armor, and he gritted his teeth and clung to the side of the vessel.

Beast Boy assumed his human form and gazed up with an impressed whistle. "Robin's got some vert," he said.

Shadow exploded from Raven's cloak, streaming up in the form of claws that wrapped around the escaping ship. Her voice strained as she grunted, "Little busy, here."

"Oh." He rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled. "Right."

An eagle's shape supplanted Beast Boy's and carried him into the sky. The Beast Bird darted around the rippling contrail of the scout vessel as it struggled to break free from Raven's unearthly grasp, and flew to the top of the ship. There, his delicate, feathered frame ballooned into ridiculous proportions, becoming that of a brachiosaurus whose color blended perfectly with the rest of the forest (but whose size made the thought of stealth a poor joke). The ship beneath him struggled with the additional weight, and then shook and dipped as an enormous set of stone hands shot from the ground and ripped into its fuselage.

Sweat beaded from Terra's brow and ran along the rim of her goggled eyes as she pulled at the ship with her Gaia hands. Streams of loosened dirt blew into the wind from the great granite armatures. "You're grounded," she said with a grimace.

"Hold it a little longer," Cyborg called out to his team. He ignored the blaring warnings of his operating system, as well as the scorch mark that now comprised his chest plate, and dropped to one knee. Tremors shook the ground from Terra's efforts, and Raven's magic kicked up a fierce wind that made his human eye water. Concentrating, he re-formed his sonic cannon and raised its aperture to the scout ship. Power warnings replaced the damage reports in his cybernetic vision as he shunted every ounce of power he could spare into his weapon. "Now you've done it," he muttered to the spaceship, feeling his body siphon its very strength into his right arm. The sonic cannon began trembling with more power than it had ever hosted. "You made me get loud."

Cyborg let loose with a stream of blue devastation, taking care not to turn Robin into a smear. Despite the quake of his arm, and of the ground beneath him, his shot struck square and true in the portside engine of the vessel, crushing most of the alien equipment within it and blowing a hole out of its top that scattered slagged scrap across the forest. Cyborg cheered, but prematurely; with only one thruster left, the craft's course became lopsided, and Terra, Raven, and dinosaur Beast Boy squalled as it began flying in a haphazard circle.

Clinging to the vessel's side, Robin grunted and ducked his head as a wailing brachiosaurus slid from the top of the tilting ship and slammed onto the forest floor with a deafening flop, followed by the crunching and toppling of the trees in his wake. "This ends now," he snarled. Releasing one hand, Robin allowed himself to swing back, supported by only his fingertips dug into the armor of the ship, and then tugged himself back with every ounce of super strength he had within him. His fist pounded through the material, equalizing the interior's pressurized atmosphere outward with a puff. Hand still stuck, Robin opened his palm and willed his scarlet energies to cut loose in every direction, laying down what he hoped was a devastating beam of cohesive destruction that would damage something critical.

As thin a plan as it was, it seemed to work; the ship listed further toward the ground, tightening its spiral into a downward spin. Robin leapt free at the last minute, rebounding off of a tree before the scout vessel snapped it in two and rolling to safety. He lost his footing as the ground rumbled with the ship's hard landing. By the time he rose back to his feet and turned around, it had already slid to a stop against a pile of ruined trees at the end of a long furrow.

The rest of the Titans gathered behind him as he ran for the ship. He spied a rectangular seam set near the bottom of its hull, and made a beeline for that. "Form up and get ready," he shouted back at them. "Starfire's still in there, and she—"

The hatch that the Titans ran toward blew out with a flash of emerald, forcing the heroes into a screeching halt. Robin watched the mangled door bounce against the ground until it landed at his feet, smoldering. Then, a shrill howl caught his ear and lifted his head, where bright green light spilled out from the hatchway and spit a flailing and rotund shape from the ship's depths.

"Monster!" a streak of gold screamed as it exited the ship. The blur followed its tumbling projectile through the air, slamming into the creature and knocking it to the ground. The creature, which Robin and the others recognized as a Gordanian, landed with a vicious _whud_ on the forest floor. A similar sound escaped his lungs when the streak flew down and launched its foot into his gut. "Monster!" the streak screamed again, now slowed enough to become recognizable.

"She looks like she's doing okay to me." Cyborg drawled at the tail end of Robin's hanging order. Then he squinted, frowning. "Is she…naked?"

States of undress didn't matter to Starfire. She lifted Skrag from the ground and struck him in back of her hand. "You vile takrat," she yowled with glowing eyes, pressing her thumb into his throat as her free hand beat him about the face. "You will never touch me again, do you hear me? Never! **Again**!"

Skrag could only moan as he flew through the air once more, crashing through the trunk of a tree, and then another, and finally coming to rest against the splintering base of a third. His attacker soared between the toppling towers of wood, snatching a sapling one-handed along the way. The young tree tore free of the ground with a sharp _crack_, and smoldered beneath her green, glinting fingertips.

"Little one," murmured Skrag, peering through swollen eyes at his precious find.

The green sapling broke against his head as she swung through, splintering and bending with another _crack_ that slammed Skrag's head against the tree trunk at his back. "Never call me that," she told him with deadly quiet. "Only one man may call me that, and you could never hope to be a shadow of what he was."

Starfire's foot lashed out, snapping Skrag's head in the other direction and launching his body to follow. He struck a rock outcropping, fracturing the shapeless boulder as well as several things within his own body before he slid down its rain-smoothed surface. But before his body had even finished settling, Starfire was already upon him again, with fists that moved in a blur.

"Never again," she howled. "Never again, you monster!"

"Starfire. Starfire!"

A hand grasped at her shoulder, pulling her back from her quarry. She swung blindly behind her, and caught Robin square in the jaw. Even with all the power he now possessed, her blow staggered the Teen Wonder back several steps and knocked his head to one side.

Robin tasted blood as he looked back to Starfire. Her shoulders heaved up and down with hyperventilating breaths, and her eyes still burned, but her mouth pulled back in a guilty expression, and she did not strike him again. He took that as a positive sign, and said, "Starfire, I think you got him. It's over."

The rest of the Titans approached slowly, keeping a fair distance from the pair and well away from the battered heap that they assumed was Starfire's kidnapper. "Yeah," said Beast Boy as he regarded Skrag's train-wreck body. "I don't think he's going to resist arrest…or any stiff breezes, really."

Slightly abashed at seeing his teammate naked, Cyborg nonetheless didn't miss the deep welts carved into Starfire's stomach, nor the swell of her blackened cheek. "We know he hurt you, Star," he said, "But you gotta stop. We can't let you kill—"

"You know? You _know_?" Starfire trembled, unable and unwilling to contain her rage for her friends' benefit. She tossed a contemptuous look back at her moaning captor and spat, "You have no idea of what this…this…this beast has to answer for, Cyborg." Her glare shifted back to Robin as she added, "None of you know. So do not pretend that you understand." She gathered her green energy into her hand, forming an enormous starbolt that shook her entire arm as she lowered it in Skrag's direction.

"Killing isn't an answer," Raven murmured. She pulled her hood back, allowing the sincerity in her face to escape the shadows of her hood and cross the forest to reach Starfire. "It's just another problem. And it's one that doesn't go away…" Her gaze lowered for a fraction of a second before she reasserted it with cold candor. "You—"

"He violated me."

The sharp bite of Starfire's words hung between the Titans, silencing the forest for the longest moment in their memories. She looked around to each of them, taking sick pleasure in their shock. "Not just tonight. For years, this monster was my keeper. For years, he made me feel worthless, like a toy to be used up and discarded. Every night. Every day. And that was what he came to bring me back to." Bitter tears ran from the corners of Starfire's eyes, steaming and hissing beneath the might of her emerald fury. The starbolt in her hand continued to grow, begging to be launched into Skrag's stirring form. "As a princess of Tamaran, I have every right to take his life."

Robin stepped forward. "Maybe," he said softly. "But Starfire is a member of the Teen Titans." He raised his hand, resting it upon her readied arm. "And I know she would never murder a helpless being in cold blood, no matter what he did to her. She's better than that."

Starfire stood frozen, uncertain. She bit her lip as she considered Robin's pleading face. Skrag's whimpering body lay at her feet, broken, bleeding, and ripe for the plucking. Thousands of images flashed from her memory, remembrances of Skrag's sausage fingers groping her body, and of his teeth tearing into her flesh, and of his essence polluting her own. She felt so tired, so cold and alone, and the hatred in her heart weighed upon her until her knees knocked with fatigue.

"He's taken so much from you," whispered Robin, so that only she could hear him. "And if you do this, he'll take everything decent in you. Please, Kory."

Her tears tripled and trickled down her cheeks as she let the energies within her eyes fade, revealing trembling green orbs that rested upon the monster of her past. Slowly, with Robin's help, she lowered her starbolt and let it vanish into the air unused. Starfire stumbled backwards into Robin's grasp, still heavy with hatred, but still standing as well. "I want to go home," she murmured to the Teen Wonder.

Robin detached his cape from his collar and draped it around her trembling shoulders. "Let's go home," he agreed. The rest of the Titans moved in hesitantly, offering her helping hands and shoulders to lean on.

A snorting grunt erupted form Skrag's broken body. "Little one," he moaned. "Little one, where…where are you? Where is my little one? We…we have to go home."

Starfire's eyes flared, and Skrag became the center of a bright green flare. He screamed as emerald fire burned him from every direction, writhing on the ground until unconsciousness finally ended his pain. When the burning nimbus around him faded, so did Starfire's eyes, which then looked around the collected expressions of shock on her teammates' faces.

"He will live," she grunted, and leaned heavily on Robin for support as he led her away.

* * *

The Medical Bay doors snapped open, disgorging a mismatched pair from its sterile smelling innards out into the hallway. The taller of the two wore a series of bandages across her midriff and a butterfly patch over her swollen cheek. Both dressings trapped in medical jellies and topical painkillers to help her along the road to recovery. Her companion hovered by her side, eager to help her in any way he could. "You're sure you're okay," Robin asked. 

"Yes," Starfire said with a sigh. "I will survive, Robin." I thank you for your concern…your 'repeated' concern," she added with a roll of her eyes. Together, they began to walk the Tower's corridors, neither really leading and with no discernable destination in mind. At the moment, Starfire's attention shifted to the anxious face bobbing next to her at shoulder level, and her own uneasiness.

Robin rubbed at the back of his neck with a nervous chuckle. "Yeah," he said. "Med Bay's been getting a lot of practice lately. Too much practice," he added in a mutter.

Their footsteps echoed through the Tower unaccompanied in the awkward silence that followed between them. Robin's lips parted several times, trying to start a conversation that would lead to the words he wanted to say. But the easygoing segues cropping up in his mind died en route to his mouth, stomped out without mercy by the faraway look in Starfire's eyes.

The pace of their steps slowed of its own accord, weighed down by something unseen. They stopped at the intersection down the hall from Ops, in front of a photograph taken just after the Tower's inauguration. Faced with their smiling counterparts of days gone by, Robin could no longer stand the guilt. "Kory," he began, "I—"

"No." Eyes glued to the picture on the wall, Starfire shook her head. She spoke to the younger, cockier, smiling Robin of yesterday, lest she catch sight of the forlorn facsimile standing next to her and lose her grip on the tears threatening her eyes. "You will not apologize, Robin." The glass felt cold beneath her fingertip as she brushed at the younger Starfire's smile. "Not after tonight."

"Kory…"

"No," she said again, this time more forcefully. "I know you understand, Robin. You know me too well, and you know what you did." A single drop escaped the iron curtain of willpower over her eyes, and tickled a trail down her cheek. "You lied to me, Robin. And for what?" Starfire clamped her eyelids down and turned away, letting her touch linger on the framed photo. "So I would not discover a festival which you and the others wished to exclude me from?"

Robin clenched his teeth, biting down on whatever platitude his autopiloting mind thought would help. He reached out to her, as though the right words could be plucked from the air between them. But then he dropped his arms. "You're right," he admitted.

"Of course I am." The regality within her reared its head, drawing her chin up.

"I know what honesty means to you, Kory." Now Robin turned away. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, wondering how the best, most well-planned night of his life had degenerated into something like this. "What I did…I can…I mean, I can't, but…"

"I forgive you."

"What?"

When he turned, Starfire's sad, sham smile waited for him with saintly patience. She clasped her hands and said, "I forgive you. This is not Tamaran, and I know you did not mean to hurt me with your words." Cracked worked at the foundation of her voice. "I still do not understand everything about your world. Perhaps one day I will, but until then…I forgive you."

"I…don't know what to…" Robin could hardly speak. No matter how well he thought he knew her, no matter how jaded his place in the world made him, Starfire never failed to surprise and amaze him. It was just one of a thousand reasons his heart wouldn't stop pounding when she came near, and why he would do anything to help her smile again for real, starting tonight. "Let's go into Ops, Kory," he said at last. "There's something I want you to see."

Her head shook a negative, but when he began backing toward Ops' double doors, she followed. "No, Robin. I do forgive you, but I am…angry. Hurt." Her steps fell heavily as they reached the doorway. "It would not feel right to attend your celebration."

"You've got it turned around," Robin told her before touching the doors' controls, bidding them to open. "The party wouldn't feel right without you."

Starfire gasped at the metamorphosis Ops had undergone. Streamers and balloons swathed the expansive room in her favorite colors. Amidst the field of lavender and emerald, Starfire saw tables set up, bow-legged beneath a tremendous amount of her most beloved Earth foods. Two cakes stood in the center of the snack array, one iced with colorful butter cream frosting, and the other with pungent yellow mustard that made her mouth water from all the way across the room.

A banner spanned the width of the room, bearing foot-high letters that wished Starfire a happy anniversary. And beneath the well-wishing words, three teens stood, abashed, and gave a nervous cheer of 'surprise.'

"Happy anniversary, Kory," Robin murmured, and ushered the speechless girl in.

"I… What is this?"" Starfire's lower lip trembled as she stepped in, turning full circle to gaze upon her friend's handiwork.

Terra smiled wanly. "It's a surprise party."

"For you," Beast Boy added. He pointed up to her name written in towering neon caps on the sign above them.

"It's been two years to the day, Star," Cyborg told her. A limp noisemaker hung in his giant's grasp, and a look of uncertainty pulled his organic features down despite his forced grin. "When a girl falls from heaven, it's the kind of thing you remember."

Those hard-fought tears won the battle, and marched in victory down Starfire's face. She clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a tiny sob. "You spent the entire day in preparation for this?" she asked around her fingers.

"Yeah," chuckled Terra, sans humor. "We found out that we pretty much suck at surprise parties, too. And we're real sorry about…" She caught sight of Robin's nod, and trailed off with, "Yeah."

"We wanted to do something special for you," Robin said. With hesitant hands, he clasped her bare shoulders to steady her wobbly frame. "We wanted to show you how much…" Starfire showed no reaction to his touch, and so he removed his gloves from her arms. "But after tonight…"

Starfire broke away from Robin with a quick step. She circled around him, rising up the two short steps in front of the doors. When she turned back with slick cheeks and quivering lips to her silent friends, her voice barely crossed the short distance to them. "After a night such as this one," she told them, "I need something to remind me why I am so lucky to have landed on Earth."

A smile spread her wet face wide, and doubled her tears. Wordlessly, Robin stepped forward, followed quickly by the other Titans into Starfire's waiting arms. They piled together in a group hug with whispered assurances to stem Starfire's joyful tears. The sweet words drew from her a sobbing laugh at her own foolishness' expense.

"Where is Raven?" asked Starfire as their hug disassembled itself. She sniffled and wiped her face dry with the back of her arm, wearing an uncertain smile. "Will she not be here?"

Cyborg slapped her on the back, nearly toppling her. "No worries," he said, and encircled her shoulders to lead her into the thick of her party. Robin didn't miss the pointed glance Cyborg tossed his way over the top of Starfire's head. "She's just taking care of some business downstairs. She'll be up any minute."

* * *

Laughter rolled across Skrag's mangled lips, filling the confines of his miniscule cell. The guttural chortling soon spilled through the force field that held him at bay and flooded the rest of the Tower Holding Area. There, it grew to choke every corner of the room, ricocheting off blinking control consoles and infecting the three empty cells besides Skrag's. Raven felt the laughter's vile touch from behind the primary operational console, and muted her sneer into a mere crease of her brow as she checked and rechecked the invisible wall keeping Skrag locked up. 

"You childish monkeys really don't have a clue, do you?" he said, bathed in the reverberations of his own amusement. "You've lost, no matter what you tell yourselves. When the Armada comes looking for me, your world will burn beneath the heel of the mighty Gordanian people."

"I don't think so," said Raven.

The console screen in front of her began to rattle off reassuring reports of the systems Cyborg had built into their tiny prison. Motion sensors, infrared sensors, EM emission scanners, pressure sensors both inside and outside the cells, and audio taps all stood ready to ensure that their guest wouldn't be checking out early and unnoticed. Weapon emplacements hidden within the walls would spring out and stop him in the most unpleasantly non-lethal manners imaginable if he tried. Raven nodded, satisfied that Skrag was tucked in for the night.

"Cyborg had the chance to download your ship's logs," she continued, circumventing the console to approach him. The cloak she kept wrapped around her body gave her movements an unnatural quality while she glided to a stop in front of his cell. "Seems you're on an extended assignment, and your superiors don't care too much about checking up on you." Eyes like white fire narrowed into a scowl at the back of her hood. They reminded Skrag of the stars, and mocked him thusly as well. "I doubt we'll be seeing a full-scale invasion anytime soon."

Skrag wilted beneath her glare. "You don't think you can keep me here forever, do you?" he asked, floundering to keep the bravado from slipping out of his tone. With a puff of his round chest, he drew himself up, stretching his tattered armor and spilling out of its cracks. "This primitive pen can't possibly hold me."

True dread sparked in Skrag when he saw a wry smirk upon the shadowed lips of his captor. "It won't have to," she told him. "Tomorrow you'll be transferred to the Slab. It's a holding facility built near one of our planet's magnetic poles." Leaning forward, Raven let the tip of her hood brush the force field. A wave of light preceded the field's protestant crackle, illuminating the dark look of contempt she wore for him. "I hear it gets very cold in the Slab. I wonder what it will do to a cold-blooded killer like you."

Skrag's dread descended into desperation as Raven turned away. "You…you cannot do this," he yowled to the receding girl. "The Tamaranian is mine, you cannot keep it from me! I cared for it. I loved it. I—"

The room began to tremble beneath Skrag's three-toed feet. Lights overhead buzzed, flickered, and died alongside the force field keeping him in. But thoughts of escape never found Skrag in the pitch black of his prison. Instead, he fell back onto the uncomfortable bunk of his six-by-six cell, and gasped as the air around him grew unbearably cold.

"I know exactly what you did to her," rumbled a terrible voice from all around him. The endless black broke with the birth of four slits of red light hovering above him. Only when they narrowed into a predatory scowl set upon him did he realize they were eyes. "But say it anyway. Tell me how you violated her, animal. Tell me," the omnipresent growl demanded as the eyes descended. Their bloody light intensified, revealing a set of demonic teeth beneath them, held within a cruel sneer. "Give me one more reason to tear your heart out and feast upon it."

Skrag sobbed and looked away. Just as he prepared for oblivion, he felt the chill of the air break and vanish. When he opened his eyes, light once more inhabited the room, and the quiet hum of his cell's force field had returned as well. His captor stood opposite him outside the confines of the field with a horrified look cast upon her shrouded beauty. When she saw his fearful curiosity, she set her mouth into a thin line, and glared at him with two baleful, violet eyes.

"I hope you enjoyed every aspect of what you did to Starfire," Raven told him in a carefully neutral tone. "From now on, you'll be on the receiving end of it." And with that, Raven swept away and out the door, trying to mask her trembling legs with a quick gait.

The doors whispered shut behind her, leaving Skrag alone with his miserable thoughts. He curled up in his bunk and squeezed his eyes shut, trying without success to drown out the laughter of the stars.

* * *

In the wee hours of the morning, two friends sat atop an oddly-shaped tower in the middle of the bay, each of them fueled only by an excess of caffeine and sugar, and the mutual joy they took out of one another's company. Their party had been laid to rest many hours ago, when its guests had retired one by one, with some passing knowing glances at a certain caped individual. Now the pair sat beneath the spillover glow of their roof's floodlights, reading from a book spread across their collective lap as they awaited the dawn. 

"My nephew," Robin read in a sing-song falsetto, "You seem to be displaying signs of triviality." He glanced over at Starfire with a grin, waiting expectantly.

Starfire returned his smile in kind before reading from the last page of their book. She said in a deep voice, "On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I have now realized for the first time in my life the vital importance of being earnest." She looked up at Robin, beaming. "What a marvelous story," she said with a sigh.

Robin shrugged. "It felt a little weak in some spots," he said. "The whole story seemed to hinge on a couple of pretty big coincidences, don't you think?"

The criticism, however apt, would not sway Starfire in the least. "Romantic endings of happiness are wonderful," she countered. With a dry look, she added, "And I found the theme particularly applicable as well."

"That bunburying leads to humorous British hijinx?"

"That the truth," she told him with a playful slap to his shoulders, "Especially in matters of the heart, is always best." Starfire's expression sobered, and her eyes were drawn to the horizon, where the false dawn tickled the sky with yellow highlights. "Earth is a wonderful place, Robin, with many wonderful people, and things, and ideas. But sometimes," confessed Starfire, "I believe Tamaranian ways are yet superior, and far preferable."

"I agree." The blunt statement recaptured Starfire's gaze, and lit it with confusion and curiosity. Robin stood and offered his hand to Starfire. After helping her up, he led her to the edge of the roof. Her heart began to beat faster as he kept his hold on her hand, and squeezed it gently. "Koriand'r, this whole night…Well, it was supposed to how you how much we care about you, and how glad we are that you're here."

She squeezed back and smiled. "It has done so," she assured him. "That and more."

"But more than that," Robin continued, "It was going to give me the chance to tell you something. Something important." Rare uncertainty returned to Robin's face for an encore performance. Never had Starfire seen him so utterly unsettled. "The problem is, I'm not one much for words. I've tried saying it before, but…well, the words just…"

Starfire could feel her heart pounding in her chest now. "Just say what you know is true," she whispered in a daze.

A low chuckle drew his lips up. "That's why I planned the party," Robin admitted. "I guess I speak better with actions than with words." He reached down with his free hand into a small pocket on his utility belt and came back with a small, flat box that fit into his palm, which he lifted up for Starfire to see. "And like any good man of action, I know that it's all about what equipment you're armed with."

Starfire relinquished her hand from Robin's to take the box. The first tendrils of sunlight worked their way over the horizon, lighting the way for her hands. Working her fingers into its seam, she pried it open, and nearly dropped it in shock upon seeing its glimmering green contents. "A Centauren moon diamond?" she breathed, and gasped at its flawlessness. She had seen only one other in her life, and that had been merely a ruse perpetrated by her deceitful sister.

Awed, Starfire grasped at the stone's cut edges with trembling hands, and drew the diamond from its case. A looped chain of white gold trailed after it, pooling in her palm as she turned the necklace over and over in her hands. "It is beautiful," she gushed, close to tears once again. "It is…?"

"All yours," Robin said. He took her hand once more, locking his muscles to keep from shaking apart from nervousness. "I know how disappointed you were when you had to give Blackfire's gift back. And I thought…" He swallowed the lump in his throat and said, "And I thought it might go a long way toward telling you how I feel about you."

"Oh…" Starfire's heart thudded on overdrive, driven by an endless joy which could have moved the earth and rearranged the heavens if she wished it so. Her gaze rose from the moon diamond, filling with all the collected feelings she had harbored for Robin for so long, ready at last to be shared. With tender green eyes, she looked into his face…

And met the wide, empty expanses of his mask's lenses.

A gasp rocked Starfire's throat silent, choking her awaited confession back. She squeezed at the hand in her grasp, and felt instead the cool, smooth glove that kept her from knowing his touch. The thousand things Starfire wished she could say drifted out of her in a stuttered breath, stolen away into the endless white voids where his eyes should have been.

"Kory?" Robin's mask widened at her expression. "Kory, what is it? What's wrong?" Fear lurked in his tone, waiting for reply.

"I…I cannot."

"What?"

Starfire wrenched her hand from his as she turned away into the rising sun. The joyful tears that waited in her eyes before now fell with the weight of a terrible hurt. "I cannot," she said again in a gut-wrenching tone. "Forgive me, please, but I…" Unable to finish, she leapt into the sky with a sob, rising high into the new morning. Sorrow rained from her cheeks in droplet. One of them struck the Teen Wonder, burning his face with a taste of what his admission meant to her.

"Kory, come back!" he cried, reaching into the sky. But she was already gone, a tiny dot that faded into the clouds overhead. Robin fell to his knees in disbelief, and felt something hard beneath his left. Lifting it, he found his perfect gift lying discarded next to its box, and _The Importance of Being Earnest_. Numb, he lifted the book and the necklace up, cradling them in arms that could crush concrete, arms that now felt weak and lifeless. "I don't understand," he said to the empty roof.

Though he waited atop the Tower long after the morning became afternoon, no answers came from without or within. And Starfire did not return.

**END: ANNIVERSARY**

**NEXT: TEK**

I can see the reviews and comments before they even come in. "Why do you hate Starfire so much? How could you do that to Starfire? What's a skuzz whomber?" Well, in reply to the first two questions: I don't, and because, in that order. As for the third, well, even I have no idea. You'll have to ask Gizmo.

The fact is, when the series first came out, I looked into the Titans' characters fairly extensively. is a fantastic site, incidentally, and I use it for all my Titans-related research. Check it out some time. But getting back to the matter at hand; Starfire's a former slave, and was given up by her parents to the Gordanians to avert a war. Naturally, she escaped to Earth, or she wouldn't be on the show, but I couldn't believe that would be the end of it.

I simplified the comic canon history a bit, just because I didn't trust myself to develop Starfire's encounter with the three or four alien races she ran into between the Gordanians and Earth (originally, her powers were the result of alien experimentation courtesy of the Psions, or something like that). That detail didn't matter to me so much as the question of, "What happens when someone comes looking for Starfire?" The result impressed and disturbed even me, and I knew what was going to happen (pretty much) from start to finish. The story itself ballooned from three chapters to five, and included the birth of a few characters that I plan on bringing back in the near future because they're a lot of fun.

Starfire's reading material took me a week to pick out. No, I'm not kidding. Stop laughing. I wanted to find things that had common themes with this story arc: racism, prejudice, dishonesty, and some others that smarter people than I will probably recognize and that I inserted accidentally, but will claim to have done on purpose after the fact. _To Kill a Mockingbird, The Importance of Being Earnest, and _(yes, I know, stop laughing already) _The Sneeches_ were all great texts to insert, and worked out just like I had hoped. Also, delving into Starfire's past was a lot of fun, and I hope you enjoyed it too.

Incidentally, my more fanatical followers will notice that I changed Mammoth's civilian name retroactively. This is due entirely to an enormous screw-up on my part, which I attribute to my ineptitude. Baran Flinders is Mammoth's civilian name, whereas Clint (Barton) is Hawkeye from the Marvel universe. How I swapped one for the other is anyone's guess.

I'll be taking a week off to get my act together on the next story arc, as well as a few other stories. So take heart, faithful reader, because (like I can't help but repeat)…

The best is yet to come.


	20. Tek: Alley

_All-Purpose Disclaimer_

**Teen Titans** is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Cartoon Network Inc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit and purely for entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, not to be reproduced without prior consent. Additional information used in creating **Teen Titans: Avatar** courtesy of Titans Tower Online

* * *

A girl fled through the empty streets of Jump City one night, afraid for the life she hadn't even begun to know. Rain pounded from slothful gray giants, blanketing her in greasy baptismal waters that soaked through the thin garb stretched across her body, and made slippery her sprinting steps. Puddles parted for the boots attached to her suit, tossing water in her wake. Lightning flashed to light her way, and thunder bellowed to herald her through the back alleys. Panic kept her young legs and heart pumping, fueled by the dark shape that hungered for her just around the last corner. 

She rounded the corner in the canyon channels of the city. Her hands traced the slimy bricks, seeking to steady herself from an alien dizziness. The swelling in her left eye made it difficult to see through the torrential rain. Beneath the muck, the coarse face of the wall teased her calloused fingertips. Familiar sounds filtered into her ears, sounds of a city and its nocturnal heartbeat, but a shrill cry came to drown the sounds out. When her throat began to burn, she realized that the screams were her own.

Left and right, left and left and right she ran, until the streets finally betrayed her. A dead end thwarted her flight, and the water beneath her feet turned her sudden stop into a ski that slammed her onto the cement and split her suit's thigh. Fresh blood spilled into the water with a sting and scrape of her shin. She winced and picked herself up, panting in shallow breaths as she spun. Her stumbling steps carried her to the end of the alley, where the wall kept her cornered and in plain sight of the silhouette striding around the corner.

"Dispatch," said the tall, broad-shouldered man to the empty air between him and his quarry, "Target sighted." The crisp lines of his suit drooped soggily beneath nature's onslaught, all without his noticing. He touched his ear, listening to some response she couldn't hear. "My twenty is at Tenth Street and Main." More silence drew her chest into a tight knot as his dark eyes flitted to her. "Copy. Affirmative, send the rest of the squad. Irons out."

She scrambled back against the wall. A ball of fear clenched in the pit of her stomach and began working its way toward her back. Murmuring haunted her ears, indiscernible, insistent, as she watched the man approach. Blood trickled from her lips as she asked, "Who are you? Why are you doing this?"

Irons stood before her, towering over her willowy frame. A series of sickening pops tumbled from his neck as he rolled his head to one side. His lips split into a sick smile. "In life," he told her, "There are hunters, and there is prey. If you aren't a hunter, you're fodder."

His charcoal skin bubbled and began to shine in the streetlamp gloom. With a grunt, Irons became a shimmering idol of liquid silver that covered every inch of his skin, and reflected her terror in his deadly smile. The clank of metal on metal sang from his palm as his hand closed into a fist and raised high above them, ready to crush her skull into the street without qualm or mercy. She felt the ball of fear in her stomach shoot back, hovering near her spine.

"Please," she whimpered, "Please…tell me who I am."

Irons sneered, and shifted his weight for the killing blow. "You're a mistake."

The metal fist descended, and her fear erupted from its nest in her lower back. Light exploded into the alley and threw Irons' head back. He roared in confusion, stumbling and rubbing at the stars in his metallic eyes.

Her own eyes burned with blue-white, and so she squeezed them shut and looked away. The beasts murmuring in her ears let loose with a terrific roar that made her scream and clutch her ears. Pressure slithered across her body, pressing into her from every direction, and she screamed again. Confused, frightened, she felt herself slipping away from her own body.

When her eyes opened again, the blinding light had faded, and the world had flipped itself; Irons stepped back from her with abject horror written in his shiny face. His fists opened and dropped, glinting in the restored gloom of the alley. She now saw her hunter more clearly than before, and no longer felt the pounding rain against her pressured skin. The alley blurred around her as pounding footsteps whisked her upon Irons. Before she blacked out, she caught sight of some horrible, beastly shape in the reflection on Irons' forehead. Then, nothing.

The screams of a dying man haunted her dreams.

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Tek**: _Alley_

"Twenty-eight…Twenty-nine…Thirty…Thirty-one…"

Doctor Katherine Brown looked up from her clipboard of scribbled notes and through the glass partition of her control room. The voice filtering in through the room's speakers continued its count with no appreciable strain, while its owner kept right on performing his miraculous feat of inhuman strength on the other side of Brown's glass shield. Brown double-checked the equipment readouts on the consoles in front of her. With no mistakes evident, her sense of wonder ballooned. But then, miracles happened every day at the Jump City branch of S.T.A.R. Labs. "Okay, Robin," she said into a microphone, "That's enough. I'm coming in."

Robin grunted and let the bar of his bench press down. Two towering machines sat on either side of him, attached to the bar in place of weights to provide some kind of challenge for his newfound strength. Once the bar had settled, he slid out from beneath it, and rose to greet the scientist exiting the control booth. "So," he asked, "How'd I do?"

"Acceptably," Brown said, masking her amazement. She glanced at her notes yet again to convince herself she wasn't dreaming, before handing them for Robin to page through. "Your strength has shown remarkable improvement. You were lifting ten tons."

He smirked. "Didn't feel an ounce over two." The clipboard's pages fluttered beneath his disinterested eyes. All of Brown's charts and statistics told him everything he already knew: that his strength and powers continued to grow. "Anything new developing with my house guest?" He knocked on his chest over the spot where his symbiote sat, nestled inside of his ribs.

A strange look overcame Brown's face. She took her clipboard back and brought up a specific series of pages. "Walk with me," she instructed him, and began leading him from the test floor. "We need to talk."

Robin followed her out into the Labs' halls. Quiet concern replaced his casual attitude. "Is there something I should be worried about?" he asked with a frown.

"That depends on you," Brown countered cryptically. The biomagnetic aura you're emitting at the cellular level is intensifying by the day…which explains the ridiculous lengths we went to for your latest blood sample."

"I didn't think you could tip an oil drill with a hypodermic needle." Robin rubbed the crook of his elbow, where Brown's jury rigged drill had pricked his skin. "There has to be a better way."

"You should see how we get it out of Superman," she said. "The stories I've heard from Hamilton…" Her expression brightened as she flipped to the next page. "Oh, here we go. You might be interested to know; I think your new energy projection ability has given us the key to the source of your powers."

Robin frowned. "It's the alien, isn't it?"

"Of course it's the alien," Brown chided him, rolling her eyes. "I'm talking about specifics. You aren't very bright for a detective." Ignoring his irritated look, she continued, "The test we took on your bird bolts…" Her eyes rolled again at the name. "—show that they appear to be a transmutation of solar energy similar to Koriand'r's starbolt energy wave."

The name prompted a twitch in Robin's mask that Brown didn't miss. "So I'm solar powered," he asked.

"And environmentally friendly," Brown assured him. "Provided you aren't tearing apart whichever environment your latest super fight takes place in."

They reached a set of sealed doors with the words 'Containment Room' emblazoned amidst the striped yellows and blacks of numerous cautionary signs. Brown gave the security panel next to the doors her palm print, retinal scan, voice code, and a taste of her security badge to coax the airtight seal open. A rush of air blew past the pair as the doors rolled open, revealing to Robin a sight he hadn't laid eyes upon in months.

"Here it is," Brown said with an anti-theatrical wave of her clipboard. "Fallen Songbird." The spherical ship sat in the middle of the Labs' cylindrical containment unit, held fast by countless metal armatures spindled from the wall in case the silent vessel thought to soar again. A team of white-coated scientists buzzed around the circumference of the ship. They moved in and out of its opened hatch, and over and under its smooth fuselage, waving devices as foreign to Robin as the ship was to the scientists.

Robin recaptured his breath. "Have you made any progress translating the ship's logs?"

"None to speak of," admitted Brown. She stared at the spherical, silvery ship thoughtfully. "The language syntax is a little beyond our grasp, and exo-linguistics becomes a little trickier with non-humanoid extraterrestrials. There aren't common patterns, or themes, or analogues we can be certain of. We don't even know if they speak in nouns and verbs."

Something lurked behind Brown's words that dreaded release. "But you have found something," he surmised.

Brown gave her colleagues surrounding an uncertain glance. Then she grasped Robin by the shoulder, urging him away from the hive of activity. Once they were alone, she dropped her voice to a more conspiratorial level. "How have you been feeling lately?" she asked.

"I've felt great," said Robin. A flex of his arms accompanied the claim. When the cheeky gesture failed to cheer her sobered expression, he asked, "Is something wrong?"

Once more, Brown's clipboard took center stage. Its pages rifled beneath her graceful fingers, finally coming up to a pair of juxtaposed charts filled with chemical names, most of which Robin didn't recognize. "It's taken months, but our detailed analysis of the pilot's biochemistry is complete. Naturally, we had nothing to compare it with. The closest analogy we have to the creature's physiology is the common gastropod, and it's a poor comparison at best." Brown shrugged before delving back into her findings. "But the really interesting data began to reveal itself when I cross-referenced our research with the blood workups we've been doing on you."

Robin's detective eyes spotted it a second before Brown's big revelation. "There are similar chemicals present in both our bodies," he observed, tapping the unfamiliar names that ran across the entire page.

"Not just similar," Brown corrected him. "Identical. And completely foreign to any normal human body. There are stimulants in your blood that your body shouldn't be able to produce or process." The page flipped, revealing a chart of spiky lines marching up their scale. "Not only that, but your adrenaline levels are climbing at a dangerous rate. The symbiote appears to be stimulating your adrenal glands into abnormal productivity."

He shrugged. "What does it mean?"

"What does it mean?" The sheaf of papers slapped closed as Brown snatched her mobile tome from his hands. Her tone scolded him with shock. "Right now, Robin, you have enough adrenaline and adrenal-derivatives in your sixteen-year-old body to kill two fully grown men."

He eased her back with upturned palms. "Doctor, don't you think you're overreacting? I mean, my body has gone through a lot of changes. Remember when you thought the six degree jump in my body temperature would kill me?" With a spread of his arms, he stated the obvious: "It didn't. I'm fine."

"An altered biochemistry is different," insisted Brown. She leveled her brows at him in smoldering scrutiny of his masked face. "Have you been acting differently? Increased aggression, perhaps?"

"I don't know. Maybe." He rubbed the back of his neck. "What about it?"

"I'd bet the farm on it." Reaching into the depths of her lab coat, Brown withdrew an amber container filled with rattling specks of white. "Here," she said, handing him the canister. "Take this." Before he could ask, she continued, "It's a mild tranqilizer. Take it twice daily, at least until we can get your stimulant situation under control."

Robin regarded the pills with naked distaste. "This isn't necessary," he told her.

A lilting laugh buried any of his further protests. "Oh, how silly of me," she said. "I forgot, you have a PhD in exobiology and twenty years of lab experience with forensic biochemistry and medicine as well, don't you?" Her plastic smile became a frown. "You will take the pills," she commanded, "Or I will instruct your friends to _make_ you take them." Then, Brown looked about in a moment of realization. "Say, where are your friends? Doesn't Koriand'r usually come with you to your appointments?"

The name struck a sour note inside of Robin, churning up his previous two weeks of distant, awkward coexistence with Starfire sitting in his stomach. They hadn't spoken since the unpleasant and (to Robin) bizarre episode atop the Tower, excluding shouted warnings during missions and mumbled greetings in front of their friends.

"She—" he began, when the shrill chirp of his communicator silenced him: not the musical nine-note ditty announcing an incoming call, but an emergency signal directed to him by virtue of being the closest possible help available. Practiced hands snatched the communicator from his belt without his eyes' assistance and flipped its casing open. The name attached to the emergency call clenched his churning stomach still and widened his mask's lenses in near-panic. "Starfire," he breathed.

* * *

_Twenty Minutes Earlier_

"Home sweet home," crowed Magnum as he hopped down from a recently landed boulder onto cracked, aging pavement. The fresh purple bruise seated among the fading scars of his past ordeals couldn't dissuade an excited smile from spreading across his face. His grin swiveled back toward his chauffer and escort. "You comin'?" he asked.

Terra jumped after him, landing with a grunt. "You try hefting half a ton of rock across the city," she griped at him. "Then we'll see how much enthusiasm you have." Starfire merely wafted above them, keeping her nose turned up to the lone Streetbeat with lingering indignation.

"C'mon, Earth-Friendly," coaxed Magnum. "Don't be like that. You two want to come inside, maybe have a soda? How about it, Star Babe?" he shot skyward.

Starfire flitted down to earth, landing next to her teammate, whose eyes lifted to take in the new face of Sanctuary. No longer did chipping, yellowed paint coat the abandoned cathedral's walls. Gone, too, were the bare absences marking where crosses had been torn away by vandals of darker days, and the rotting planks that tried to fill the voids left in the shattered wake of the building's magnificent stained glass. Now the cathedral shone with a pristine white coat rimmed in powder blue. Its windows held new stained glass, colored in the shape of the Streetbeat's trademark graffiti 'S' to warn intruders of the folly of bringing mischief to this place.

An appreciative gasp rolled in through Terra's lips. "I haven't seen the place since you fixed it up," she said. "With a guilty look to Starfire, she admitted, "It would be kinda cool just to stop in, maybe say hi."

"I suppose there is no harm in a brief visit," Starfire said grudgingly. Truthfully, she had no interest in returning to the Tower any earlier. It would mean having to avoid _him_ that much longer.

Magnum clapped them both on the shoulder and led them toward Sanctuary's towering doors. "That's the spirit," he said. A dirty look from Starfire divested her of his arm, though it meant Terra got that much more attention. She smiled uneasily as he squeezed her tight and dragged with him to an innocuous section of wall. Magnum cleared his throat ceremoniously and announced, "Sanctuary, request: Doors open."

The section of wall sprang out from invisible seams and rotated, revealing a small keypad set next to an unblinking red eye. "Request acknowledged," a synthesized tone replied. "Submit identity for verification."

"Magnum," he said. With a devilish look split between the Titans, he added, "And hotties."

The red sensor flashed before the wall reverted itself into its previous anonymity. "Welcome, Magnum and hotties," the computer greeted them. A complex locking mechanism hidden within the wall began clanking, drawing the doors open. Magnum's expression dripped with smug satisfaction at the girls' obvious wonder, until the monotone voice added, "Stripwire would request that you refrain from breaking anything while you remain on the premises.

* * *

Unbeknownst to Titan or Streetbeat, a set of eyes watched their entrance through a set of powerful binoculars from behind the windshield of a black van parked down the street. The binoculars lowered once the armored doors had closed, revealing twin circles of smoldering red that vanished again behind a pair of dark sunglasses. "We may have a situation," he told his three companions. "There are Titans in the building now." 

Seated next to the redhead with the binoculars, a man of chiseled jaw, dark hair, and identical black suit narrowed his cerulean gaze. "This does present us with a conundrum, Mister Sparks. We hadn't counted on interference from the Teen Titans on this mission."

"It's worse than you think, Mister Rayne," said a man situated in the back of the van. He might have been the twin of either man seated up front, but his platinum shock of hair made him easily distinguishable from both of them. A screen's worth of pictures and files flashed at him from his laptop, bearing six grainy images of the Streetbeat. "The other subjects operating from this dilapidated hole are allegedly metahumans themselves."

Rayne rubbed his smooth chin in rumination. "Oh dear, Mister Zephyr," he deadpanned, "That could get messy indeed." His deep eyes mulled over the cathedral's surface, knowing full well it wasn't what it appeared to be. He could appreciate the concept on a very personal level. "Any thoughts, Mister Slate?"

As alike as the other three were, Slate could not have been more different. His broad frame crowded Zephyr in the rear of the full-sized van, thick with muscle that stretched to the limit the seams of his plus sized suit. The thick ridge balconied on his bald head that served as his brow descended, turning his natural frown into an all-out scowl. "Are you kidding me?" he rumbled. "They're children. We go in there, retrieve the faulty unit, and kill everyone in our way."

"Simple," reflected Sparks. "And effective…though I find it a bit gruesome for my liking."

"Hey," snapped Slate, "The bitch killed Irons, remember?"

Zephyr nodded. "Mister Slate brings up an excellent point," he said. "We cannot afford to dilly or dally."

"Quite compelling," Sparks said.

Rayne completed the consensus with a nod. "Very well, then," he stated, and reached for his door's handle. "We sweep the perimeter, gauge its defenses, and then we go in."

"And kill them all?" Slate asked, hopeful.

"And kill them all," echoed Rayne.

* * *

The interior of Sanctuary had not been spared its drastic remodeling. Polished wood and gleaming tile stood in place of the rotted floorboards Terra recalled battling atop. Broken drywall no longer comprised its perimeter, either. Now the walls ran smooth from corner to corner, and supported a new second level that jutted out above their heads, lined with bunks and chairs enough for dozens of runaway children, and connected via a series of stairways spaced evenly around the room. 

Organization had left its cleanly mark in the enormous room as well, giving the Streetbeat everything they needed: a command center set near the door, a small semicircle of consoles set into a section of the wall littered with city maps; a real workshop, with racks of tools, work benches, and a myriad of mechanical experiments both fantastic and unfathomable; even a full kitchen had come to replace the ramshackle collection of stolen appliances Sanctuary used to cling to, dominating the corner with sweeping counters, a small armada of refrigerators, and countless other appliances. But for all the numbers that Sanctuary now boasted the ability to handle, only two basked in its reworked magnificence to greet the newcomers.

"Ha, ha, Strip," groused Magnum as he stalked in, robbed of his smooth charm by the door's witty cut. "Real frikkin' funny."

An eyebrow lifted in response from the technological clutter of the workshop, raised high above a set of safety goggles on a placid face. "The intent wasn't humor," retorted Stripwire in his preternatural calm. "I simply tire of repairing things, and felt that a passive-aggressive approach would serve better than—"

"Blah, blah, blah," groaned Magnum. "Y'know, those two weeks without your yapping sure were peaceful."

"Indeed." Stripwire circled his workbench and swapped handshakes with his spiky-haired critic, careful to offer him his organic hand instead of its silvery opposite. "Perhaps you should hurt yourself more often."

"My brother, the comedian," said Magnum. But he couldn't keep the wry smile from his face. He pulled their handshake into a brief, one-armed hug. "Missed you, little shit."

"I endured your absence with minor regret as well, oaf," replied Stripwire.

Terra and Starfire kept a respectful distance from the reunion, focusing instead on the incredible changes rendered to the once-condemnable building. "Like the new look," remarked Terra. "You do all this by yourself, Stripwire?"

The short cybernetic teen shook his head. "Contractors were brought in for structural repairs, funded by the donation you and your compatriots secured. I am, however, partly responsible for the new defensive systems installed. Cyborg's input on the matter has been invaluable." He leaned over, looking past the girls. "He did not accompany you?" he asked with what passed for disappointment in his voice.

"Sorry," said Terra with a shrug. "We offered to take him along to bring Magnum home from the hospital, but…"

Starfire stepped in, saying, "Cyborg has been preoccupied with the Gordanian vessel we captured recently. He has been studying it in our Vehicular Bay at great length."

A snort from Terra capped Starfire's explanation. "He sometimes forgets to eat. And for Cyborg," she noted, "That's a serious deal."

"Aha," a sharp voice cracked from the upper deck's staircase. "There you are." All eyes swiveled to the figure descending the steps in twos and threes, dressed in a Streetbeat-tagged shirt and ratty denim jacket. Most intriguing of all his apparel, though, was the enormous broadsword strapped to his back. He gave the new arrivals a nod of his clean-cut head and smiled. "You're late," Jason said.

"Sorry," Terra said. "We would have been here earlier, but there were some pinching-related delays." She cast a scathing look back at Magnum and rubbed her posterior. The offensive offender merely smiled and raised his hands in mocking surrender.

Jason rubbed his chin, examining the purpling bruise on his teammate's cheek. "That's where this came from?"

Terra leapt to answer before Magnum's smart mouth could. "Well, when my butt became out of bounds," she said, "He decided to go to the next available target." Both she and Jason glanced over at Starfire, whose nose resumed its regal heights of indignation. Then they turned to the wounded, smiling Magnum.

"I have no regrets," Magnum boasted. His fingers twitched involuntarily at the firm, athletic memory, payment enough for the slight his face would endure for a few days.

"Glad to have you back," Jason told him. "Our duty roster's been stretched a little tight lately."

A quizzical look cocked Magnum's head to one side. "I'm gone for a few weeks, and you institute a duty roster?"

"We've always had a duty roster," Stripwire informed him. "You simply pay it no mind."

Starfire put an end to the banter. "The rest of the Streetbeat are out on patrol, yes?" Turning full circle, she remarked at the emptiness of the building. This space had teemed with wayward children when first she had visited. Her subsequent trips to Sanctuary to aid in its renovation and to help its tenants had revealed even more troubled kids that the Streetbeat had taken in. Now, the very soul of the place seemed absent when its purpose went so pointedly unfulfilled. "It is very…quiet," she decided.

"Actually, we had a decent-sized bunch of runaways just yesterday that went out." Jason surveyed his hollowed headquarters with a mixed sense of satisfaction. "Gloria came by to pick them up and put them into the system. I wouldn't worry, though. There are always plenty of runaways in Jump City. This place won't be empty for long."

"Technically," interjected Stripwire, "It is not empty now." He stepped aside and motioned toward the far side of the room, where a small, overlooked detail waited for their notice.

There, in the corner, a girl crouched in the deepest cranny of Sanctuary she could find atop a small nest of blankets. Her knees rested against her chest, held in place by the spindly arms wrapped around them. Green and black swathed her frame with a thin, tattered bodysuit. A pinkish head poked out above her knees, bearing dark stubble on its shaved scalp, and a pair of dull eyes that stared into the ether without focus. Her statuesque poster made any guess at how long she had been like that impossible, but the dismal shake of Jason's head suggested it had been far longer than was healthy.

"Right," he said. "I forgot about alley girl."

"Alley?" asked Starfire.

Jason shrugged. "We found her on the streets a few nights back. She was hurt, and covered in someone else's blood. Doesn't speak a word, so we started calling her 'alley girl.'"

"Why is she in the corner?" Terra made a face. She knew what it meant to be alone and scared, and would have given her right arm for a place like Sanctuary while she had been on the lamb.

"She wouldn't budge when I tried to get her up to one of the bunks," Jason explained. He rubbed his jaw, and added, "Clocked me solid when I touched her, too. Then she went almost catatonic. So, we set her up right where she landed." With a sigh, he said, "At first, I thought maybe she was just afraid of heights. But I think she's just afraid, period."

Pity tore at Starfire's heart as she gazed at the girl. The runaway couldn't have been much younger than Starfire, but her gaze seemed so old and alone. "She will not speak?"

"Won't speak, won't move…barely eats enough to keep herself alive." Jason blew a bitter breath. "I'm running out of ideas."

"Perhaps if we approached her with a new face," suggested Stripwire. "A non-threatening being capable of putting her at ease, while drawing her out of her metaphysical shell."

One by one, the eyes of the heroic gathering drifted toward Starfire. It took her a few extra seconds to realize that she had become the center of attention, and a few more on top of that to realize what Stripwire was suggesting. "Me?" she squeaked. "I do not know…I am not certain that I would be—"

"C'mon, Kory," Terra encouraged her. "I know you can do it. You're, like, the nicest person on the planet."

"Nicest my ass," grumbled Magnum as he touched his face. Then he tilted his eyebrow and amended, "Well, hers, actually."

"Well…"

Still unsure, Starfire took a few steps toward Sanctuary's lone patient. When she looked back, three sets of eyes met hers with encouragement and hope to fuel her on. The fourth just studied the curve of her breasts. Nonetheless, Starfire felt their faith in her lifting her downed spirits into action. She took to the air and floated, moving like a gentle breeze in hopes of not startling the alley girl. She needn't have worried; the girl's vacant gaze never detected her approach.

Up close, Starfire studied the recent rescue in detail. Cuts and bruises littered her severe features, and the skin peeking through the gaps in her bodysuit. The girl's still outline didn't remain so as Starfire drew closer. At an arm's length, the quake of her body, invisible from across the room, became obvious to the Titan. The girl's muscles remained tensed, as though she continually braced herself against some oncoming pain. "Greetings," Starfire said in as gentle a tone as she could. "I am—"

The alley girl's eyes drifted toward Starfire, freezing as they reached her golden face. Starfire froze in mid-introduction as the eyes widened. A sharp hiss of air parted the girl's lips in a gasp before she whispered, "It's you. You're real."

Confusion had been Starfire's constant companion since her arrival on Earth, and so she smiled and continued without missing a beat. "Yes," she agreed cheerfully, "I am real. My name is—"

"Starfire." The girl's joints popped in complaint as she rose from her makeshift bed to stand before the floating heroine. "Your name is Starfire." Starfire was used to people recognizing her on sight, and thought nothing of it. What the girl rattled off next morphed Starfire's lingering confusion into full-blown shock: "Koriand'r of Tamaran, exiled crown princess and former heir to the Tamaranian throne. Known powers include flight, energy projection, and super strength." The girl blinked, breathless. "You're really real."

"Yes," Starfire said again, this time in a slow, low voice. "Who are you? What is your name?"

The question made the girl step back. She hugged her chest and looked down. "Name. Name. What's my name. Don't know my name, I know her name, but I don't know my name." Then she looked back up with wild eyes. "I remember you," she insisted in a shaky tone, "But I don't remember me. Why do I remember you, and not me?"

"I…"

Days' worth of stored silence fed into the alley girl's voice as it picked up speed. "I remember her, too," she insisted, pointing to Terra across the room. "Terra." Terra shied back at the attention, and then gaped as the girl continued, "Tara Markov, geokinetic, orphan, believed to have caused—"

Starfire placed her hands on the girl's shoulders. "Calm down," the Titan pleaded, too confused to think of anything else to say. "Please, let us help you. Why were you living on the streets?"

"I don't know!" shouted the girl. She tore from Starfire's grasp and turned back to the wall, gnawing on her hewn nails and touching her face. "I know lots of things, I know who the president is, I know where eight lethal pressure points are, I know how to bake a peach cobbler, I know how to make nitro from orange concentrate, but I don't know my own name!" Whirling back, she zeroed her crazy stare on Starfire. Her hands dropped from her face, flexing as though they sought answers from the air itself. "What kind of a person can bake a cobbler, but can't tell someone they already know their name?"

No answer came to Starfire in time to stop the girl from resuming her frantic pacing and chewing. "I do not know," admitted Starfire. "Perhaps if you—"

"Woke up on the streets," said the girl, closing her eyes. "Woke up, and someone was chasing me. Running. Trying to kill me. He's going to kill me." Her entire body convulsed, caught up on her memories. "Running, running…wall. Dead end, in the alley. Hunters. Prey. Then…" A sharp, shuddering breath sucked through her cracked lips before she bit down on her knuckle. "A monster came," she whispered around her finger. "Came to save me. Wanted to kill. Blood. Blood everywhere…" The very stuff dribbled from her lips as she pierced the skin of her knuckle. She didn't even seem to notice. "Blood everywhere, all over me." Her eyes snapped open, haunting their way back to Starfire. "And the monster never left…"

The four onlookers standing back from the scene remained stock still, flabbergasted. Jason found his voice first, and said, "I was just hoping maybe Star would get her to eat something."

Stripwire's rely took a back seat to an insistent beep emanating from his artificial arm. "There are unidentified individuals requesting entry at our front door. Were we expecting other visitors?"

Jason's surprise evaporated, replaced by a cautious scowl. "We weren't." He began jogging toward the great doors, and motioned for Stripwire to follow. "Man the cameras, Strip. I'll have a chat with our solicitors." Once Stripwire had situated himself in the Command Center chair, Jason strode up to the doors. A small intercom waited for his thumb at their side. "Welcome to Sanctuary," he said in his most pleasant voice. "What can I do for you today?"

_"We're with Social Services," _came the smarmy reply through the speaker. "_It seems one of the children in your care was omitted during the last meeting. Her parents have been located, and are very worried about her. We're here to bring her in."_

Thoughtful quiet kept Jason's angered frown drawn together. After some consideration, he thumbed the intercom switch again. "Gloria Xang sent you?"

_"That's right."_

Smug satisfaction spread across Jason's face as he sprang his trap. "Then you won't mind telling me what the password is," he said into the intercom.

_"Password?"_ the visitor echoed.

"Password?" asked Terra, approaching the doors.

Jason nodded. "The deal is, we work directly with Gloria. Keeps things simple. But we prepared for the eventuality that she couldn't come," he explained. "That happens, she's instructed to give them a password, which they give to us, to let us know that whoever she sent is okay." He turned back to his other conversation, thumbed the switch, and said, "Well, gentlemen?"

_"One moment, please."_

"If they're legit," Jason said to Terra with a shrug, "They'll—"

With his bird's-eye view through the security camera monitors, Stripwire saw it first. "Jason, step back," he called coolly.

"Aw hell," muttered Jason. He tackled Terra out of the way as the doors of Sanctuary blew inward, flying off their hinges with the sound of a small explosion and propelled by a fist the size of his head. He and the Titan rolled across the floor, tangling together. Once they had stopped, he looked back, readying a scowl for whoever had the cahones or fatal stupidity to bust into his headquarters.

Three men strode into Sanctuary, each wearing identical, exquisite, and very costly suits. Their expressions matched as well, right down to the haughty air of superiority wafting from their smiles. The fourth member of their set waited to enter, and had obviously been the one to open the doors. He stood almost three heads above his compatriots, and wore a look of malevolent hatred that seemed eminently at home on his apish features.

"Well done, Mister Slate," said the suited brunette. "A bit theatric, but quite effective." To the floored Streetbeat leader, he said, "I shall make this simple, since I doubt you'll understand anything but: We are here for the girl."

In the far shadows of the room, the alley girl clawed her way back to the wall, curling into her corner. "No," she whispered, "No, no, no, no, no…"

Starfire leaned over to comfort her, and to shield her from the four strangers staring their way. "It will be all right," she insisted with a gentle voice. "You will not be harmed. I swear it."

"Monster's coming back," the girl said into her knees, burying her face. "Coming back."

"They won't hurt you again," said Starfire.

The girl quaked. "No. Not them."

"Cooperate," continued the mysterious man, "And none of you shall be harmed." He held a finger up, silencing Slate's imminent protest. "Interfere with her retrieval, and none of you will live. Simple, no?"

The Titan and Streetbeat disentangled themselves, rising to the floor as their companions began making their way back to the shattered ruins of the doors. Terra brushed the hair from her eyes and offered the four men her best smile. "I'm sorry," she said in a sugary voice. "Maybe I heard that wrong. Were you threatening to kill us?"

"Damn right, twiggy," swore Slate. He pushed past his three impassive partners and loomed over Terra, leaning down to laugh right in her face. "You gonna do something about it?"

"Yeah," Terra replied, tilting herself to one side. "I'm gonna lean to the right, here, so Starfire can cram a starbolt down your—"

A green ball of destruction collided with Slate's chin, finishing Terra's thought for her and knocking the mountain of muscle back. A man of lesser stature and physique would have been out of the fight for good, and lucky to retain anything dentally salvageable, but Slate simply stumbled back a few steps to rejoin his fellows. He glowered at the golden Titan as she floated down to join the five-point phalanx formed between them and their prize.

"A poor choice," the brunette assured them. Looking to either side, he asked, "Mister Sparks, Mister Zephyr; shall we educate them?"

"A pleasure, Mister Rayne," Sparks said with a smile.

Jason slid his feet into a battle stance and reached back. The hilt of his chipped broadsword waited with patient loyalty, fitting into his grasp with an ease borne of countless hours of practice. "My house," he said to the ladies, "My rules. That suit you?"

"Yes," uttered Starfire, never taking her glowing eyes off of the arrogant quartet.

Terra likewise scowled, and nodded. "Streetbeat, ho," she said humorlessly.

"Let me keep this simple," Jason told Rayne in a mocking tone, "Because you brain-damaged suits don't seem to realize something. That girl," he said, with a toss of his head over his shoulder toward the alley girl, "Is with us. And she is staying with us. And I don't give any kind of shit why you want her—"

An explosion of blue-white light silenced Jason's sanctimonious banter, and captured the attention of both invader and defender. Their eyes swiveled to the back of the room, where the alley girl screamed, the source of the impossible illumination. When the light faded, Jason could not find the rest of his taunt. It had slipped from his slackened jaw as he looked at what his protectee had become.

"Though as reasons go," uttered Magnum, lowering his rusted pistols, "That one is a lulu…"

**To Be Continued**


	21. Tek: Prey

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Tek**: _Prey_

A string of lights flashed past her eyes as she regained consciousness. Distantly, she heard six chattering voices yelling over her, across her, at her, oblivious to her awakening. She shied her eyes from the florescent lighting, running them instead across unfamiliar corridor walls that rolled past her at incredible speed. The discomforting touch of a gurney held her aloft and horizontal, propelled by four sets of hands whose owners surrounded the alley girl on all sides.

"Be careful," said the one called Starfire, "We must not hurt her." The alien ran a gentle touch across the alley girl's forehead to brush the sweat from her brow, and noticed that she had awakened. Though she did not say them, soothing words animated Starfire's lips as she smiled down upon her.

_—ball of living flame leaping across the room, a grim sneer held in its reds and oranges—_

The one called Terra gave her teammate a disbelieving look. "Are you crazy?" she shot. "We're the ones I'm worried about. She could snap again and kill us all!"

The words stirred the monster living in the alley girl's head. She gasped as she felt the beast yowl to life and begin its terrible murmurings in her ears; Words without words, feelings, gruesome demands put upon the alley girl. Demands of blood.

_—black water chortling its way across the floor, reaching out to choke the life from her—_

A metal leviathan the alley girl had never seen before, and knew upon sight, looked down at her with a mismatched glare. He held his arm before him, using his organic eye to read from it while an unblinking, crimson implant remained locked on her frightened face. "I'm detecting weird energy readings," Cyborg announced. "It's like nothing I've ever seen before. Whatever happened in Sanctuary, I think it's about to happen again."

More fuel for the beast's fires. She could feel its burning claws searing away at her last shreds of restraint, demanding that she give herself to it. The alley girl moaned and shut her eyes, feeling its rage form into a ball in the pit of her stomach and begin to drift back. She tried to impede its march toward her back, where she knew it would escape and kill her benefactors, but the beast would not be stopped. "No!" she cried, tossing her head side to side.

_—face of pure stone, looming, ready to swallow her whole—_

Jason, the boy who had rescued her from the streets, ran alongside her gurney. Urgency spread across his scarred visage, twisting it into panic. "She's doing it again!" he cried. "Do something!"

"Med kit," a voice from behind the alley girl's head barked. "Someone get a med kit, fast!" A buried part of her spit up the identity of the speaker, even though she could not see him through her squeezed eyelids. Robin. Tim Drake. Martial arts expert, trained detective, no known super powers. Second to—

The beast clawed its way free from the inside of the alley girl's back, ending her thoughts in a scream that echoed through the corridors and back into her own ears. Her body arched against the gurney to make way for the beast. Arms and legs held fast by strong leather straps, the alley girl could not escape. She opened her eyes to the flood of blue-white light that always foretold the beast's coming, and felt it begin pressing into her back and spread its malevolent touch.

_—haunting laughter floating through the air, laughing at her as her very breath leapt out of her lungs—_

A sharp prick at the crook of her elbow captured her gaze. There, she saw Cyborg squeezing the contents of a hypodermic needle into her arm. He pulled it out and stepped back from the gurney, summoning a massive weapon from within his own arm.

'Sonic cannon,' the girl thought as the unfamiliar gun rested its sights squarely on her face. 'Concentrated emission of sonics and ultrasonics capable of liquefying human bone at high intensities.' Warmth began working its way from the pinhole in her skin, spreading to touch every part of her. She felt the beast cower and shrink back, retreating back into the base of her spine. The blue-white light vanished a heartbeat after the beast. 'Capable of stopping it,' the alley girl thought dizzily of Cyborg's cannon, as her vision began to blur and fade. 'Have to stop it…'

"Please stop it," murmured the alley girl. The rest fell into blackness.

* * *

Four men stood in an alley several blocks from the place called Sanctuary and its tower of pluming smoke. They gathered around the open door of an unmarked, black van. Each of them wore a smothered look of dissatisfaction, and not one stitch more. 

"Well," said the naked Sparks, "That was a most unproductive endeavor." He bent into the van and began rummaging through the boxes of equipment they kept in the back, as heedless of his state of undress as the rest of them.

"Dispatch will not be pleased," Zephyr stated, pulling his lips tight. "There will be inquiries."

"Accusations," added Sparks from the interior of the van.

"Censures," continued Zephyr.

Lurking near the back of their group, Slate grunted. "We're screwed unless we get the little bitch back."

Rayne held his hands up, easing the clustered lamentations of his associates. "Please, gentlemen," he beseeched them, "Let us not defeat ourselves. Yes, there have been setbacks," he said begrudgingly. "And yes, the rogue unit did escape us for the moment. But so long as her tracking chip remains active, we will have no problems collecting her on our second attempt."

"Don't even see why we need her alive," grumbled Slate. "Scrawny runt is just a failed prototype. We're the real—."

A hand shot out, smothering the rest of his thought before it could leave his throat with abnormal strength. Sitting on the opposite end of the hand, Rayne glared up at Slate with eyes that stormed like an ocean tempest. "We need her alive," he said with preternatural calm, "Because Dispatch wants her alive. That is all the reason we need, Mister Slate, and never to be questioned by the likes of you, myself, or anyone. Is that clear?"

Unable to speak, Slate nodded his head. He gasped as Rayne released his throat, and rubbed at the bruised flesh beneath his chin. The fatigue from their prior battle had left him drained and vulnerable, which Rayne must have known, or he never would have tried such a suicidal stunt. "My apologies," sneered Slate.

Rayne nodded, forcibly oblivious to the sarcasm in Slate's tone. "All is forgiven," he assured his associate, and then turned to the other two. "But it is imperative that we not lose sight of the mission. Mister Irons died for our cause. It is up to us that his sacrifice not be in vain."

"We haven't lost sight of anything, Mister Rayne," said Zephyr. "I believe Mister Slate is just vocalizing a frustration which we all share."

Sparks withdrew from the van, carrying with him a stack of neatly folded suits and four pairs of shoes. "Perhaps when we are properly attired once again, it will give us a new outlook on the matter. They do say that clothes make the man," he said.

"I suppose that remains true for us as well," admitted Rayne. He and the others accepted the apparel from Sparks and dressed in total silence. Moments later, they were fitted into their issued suits and sunglasses, ready to tackle the problem anew. Tugging the crisp lines of his suit straight, Rayne allowed himself the luxury of a satisfied sigh. "Now, to get to the matter at hand."

"Well ahead of you, Mister Rayne," said Sparks from the front seat of the van. He read from the screen of a GPS tracking unit mounted into the van's dash. "Her signal has been reacquired."

The sound of crashing boulders erupted from Slate's knuckles as he cracked them against his palm. "Where is she?"

A pause followed the question as Sparks adjusted the GPS unit, searching for the answer. When he found it, a frown worked at his scarlet brows. "It seems we may have another problem, gentlemen," he told them.

* * *

When the alley girl woke again, she did so between the comfort of satin sheets in total solitude. Her body stretched out in front of her toward the posts of a simple bed, hidden beneath the downy folds of a comforter, and possessed of many aches and pains she couldn't recall contracting on her own. Four empty walls surrounded the bed, broken only by a dresser, drapes, and desk of equal tedium. 

She sat up slowly, lifting her head from the pillows to examine herself and her surroundings. Neither came forth with any information of particular use. The smelly spandex rags she had worn for as long as she could remember (just shy of three days) were gone, replaced by sweat pants and a tank top that both bore the sigil of the Titans.

Then she heard it.

The quiet.

She touched her ears, sucking in a desperate breath of hope. No longer did she hear the strange murmurs that had tormented her for days. No voices ordered her to do unspeakable acts. For the first time, her body felt like her own.

The room's only door whooshed open, whisking in a single individual with a smile big enough for two, and a tray laden with a steaming bowl of soup and utensils to match. His green face brightened when he laid eyes upon her. She recognized this one as well, though she knew she had never seen him before. It didn't matter, though; his was the first genuine smile she had seen all day, and it put her at immediate ease.

"Look who's finally up from her nap," said the boy with the soup as he sidled her way. She wriggled upright against the headboard of her bed, allowing him to set the tray across her lap. He backed away with a theatric bow and a playful waggle of his eyebrows. "Actually, who is up from her nap? I don't think I caught your name, pretty lady. Mine's—"

"Beast Boy," the alley girl said automatically. "Garfield Logan. Organic shapeshifter with the ability to become nearly any form of animated life." She watched his expression slip with subtle shock, and immediately felt chagrined. "Sorry," she said, kicking herself mentally. "Your friends thought that was creepy, too."

If he felt put off by her weird talent, he never let it show. "Hey," he said, regaining his faux-suave voice, "It's not like I'm a stranger to the ladies knowing who I am." Beast Boy draped himself across her bed, careful to avoid crushing her legs as he rested his head upon bent arm in a rakish pose. "But the question is, who are you?"

The last of the good cheer instilled into the alley girl by Beast Boy's off-beat entrance faded fast. She looked down into the shimmering surface of her soup, tracing the alien contours of her face. Amber uncertainty stared back at her. "I don't know," she admitted.

Surprise pulled apart the practiced humor in his face. "Whoa. Seriously?" He sat up and stared down at his shoes, feeling like a heel. "They didn't tell me that." A smile forced its way back onto his features, and though she saw through it, she appreciated the gesture nonetheless. "I was supposed to come in here and cheer you up. They picked me because I'm the funniest, handsomest, most cleverest guy here." Beast Boy flexed his puny arms, earning him a hard-won giggle.

"I thought maybe it was because you were the bravest," said the alley girl. Her brows knitted at the memory of Jason's words in the hallway. "I'm dangerous, you know."

Beast Boy nodded. "I know. That's another reason they sent me in with lunch. I'm also the expendablest one. Though between you and me," he added, leaning in with a conspiratorial wink, "They'd have to raid an entire zoo, three bird sanctuaries, and a circus just to replace me." His humor made way for a quizzical look. "What makes you so dangerous, anyway?"

The alley girl touched at her arm. There, she found the slight sting of the needle lingering beneath her probing fingers. "What did you put in me?" she asked.

"Just something to help you relax," Beast Boy said quickly. The words were obviously rehearsed. "Starfire said you were pretty freaked when she found you."

"I don't…the voices, they're…gone." She looked from her arm to Beast Boy with wonder. "All of this is so confusing. Where…where are we?"

Beast Boy strutted over to the dull drapes and threw them open. The alley girl felt her breath chased away by amazement once more as a glistening ocean revealed itself from behind the beige curtain. She pushed her soup aside and rose from the bed, mesmerized by the beautiful landscape painted behind armored glass. The silent waves drew her to Beast Boy's side, where she could touch the clean, clear window and stare out into the ocean.

"You're in Titans Tower," Beast Boy explained to her. "It's—"

"—a heavily armed and armored fortress situated three miles off the coast of Jump City, California," the alley girl rattled off unconsciously, still captivated by the waves. When she realized what she had said, and saw the surprise return to Beast Boy's face, she pulled away from the window. "I don't understand any of this," she moaned, clutching her head.

The outburst made Beast Boy nervous. "Hey, c'mon," he said, reaching out for her. "It'll be okay."

She recoiled from his touch. "I know you," she continued, "But I don't know you. I know this place. I know you have stun cannons in these walls, and plasma batteries at the perimeter, and I know three different ways to enter this place undetected, and I've never even been here!" Her arms dropped to her sides. Dejected, she looked back at her green host. "I know all of you, but I don't even know what it is you people do here."

"Let me show you," Beast Boy offered.

* * *

"Unbelievable," whispered the alley girl. 

She stood within a menagerie of glass cases filled with an eclectic collection of strange and wonderful items. There were guns in some, swords in others, making her wonder at first if this was a strange type of armory Beast Boy had brought her to. But other things sat behind the glass as well: a remote control, a two-toned mask, a bejeweled cane, a robotic skull, and many other things whose purpose she couldn't begin to imagine, and whose origins secreted fantastic tales.

Beast Boy stood nearby with hands on hips, surveying the Titans' past conquests. The alley girl's amazement stoked his pride and broadened his smile. "Welcome to the Evidence Room," he said with a flourish. "This is where we keep some of the weirder things we collect in our adventures."

Her hands grazed the case containing a rounded metal backpack with the letter 'G' embossed on its rear. "So you're adventurers, then?" she asked, moving on to the next case in the line. She saw a broken black wand through her own reflection.

He followed close behind. "More like heroes," he said. They moved from Mumbo's wand to a case containing the ruins of Slade's nanite control housing, and suppressed a shudder at the memories it dredged up. "We go out there, beat down the bad guys, and save the day. Epic battles, and all that jazz."

The alley girl stared down at a spread of throwing stars and daggers set atop a velvet pillow marked with a card that read 'Bushido.' Pensive mourning stole the joy from her eyes and weighed them down to rest upon her slippered feet. "Maybe I'm one of those bad guys," she mused aloud. She had something lurking within her that she couldn't control, something with the power to hurt anyone near her. It certainly sounded like one of his 'bad guys' to her. Would something of hers collect dust in this room one day?

"Aw," sang a falsetto pitch from behind her, "Sounds like someone's got a case of the mopeys." She turned and shrieked as the lifeless eyes of a wooden puppet danced in her face. Stumbling back, she saw Beast Boy standing behind the puppet, jerking it up and down in a silly dance that chased her fear away and brought laughter bounding to her voice. Working the arms of the crowned puppet into an open gesture, Beast Boy used a squeaky tone to make the puppet say, "What you need is a big ol' puppet hug!"

She giggled and took the Puppet King's hand, giving it a little shake. "Don't tell me this was one of your 'epic battles.'"

"Hey," Beast Boy said defensively, as Puppet King folded his arms with empathetic indignation, "I'll have you know that ol' PK here was one of our greatest foes." He hoisted the doll onto his shoulder and made its glassy eyes meet his. "S'alright?"

"S'okay," Puppet King said in Beast Boy's warped tone.

The alley girl giggled again while Beast Boy returned the dethroned king to his glass case. Her mirth soon found competition in the gurgling of her stomach, which announced its emptied status with gusto enough to turn her face red. "I guess I'm hungry," she said through her blush. "I didn't get to eat my soup."

Beast Boy took her by the arm, linking his elbow with hers. "Hey, no worries. We eat like kings around here. Slobby, chocolate-addicted kings, anyway. Let's get you to the kitchen." They exited the Evidence Room and began their journey up to Ops, where the finest in junk foods awaited their perusal. "What do you like to eat?"

"I don't know," the girl said. "I don't have a lot of experience with eating. And what's choco—"

The sound of fist striking metal ended her question as they passed an opened door and startled their steps into a dead stop. "No. Absolutely not," the shouted a voice from within the room, "It's out of the question. She can't stay in Sanctuary."

The alley girl ignored Beast Boy's whispered pleas to come with him, and crept toward the edge of the door. With a fleeting peek, she put faces to the voices coming from the interior of what looked to be a conference room. Jason, Robin, Cyborg, and a cloaked figure that the girl knew to be Raven sat around a circular table. It had been Jason who shouted the proclamation, and from the looks of things, that didn't sit well with any of the Titans.

"You must be out of your mind," Jason continued. His face puckered as he glared at the impassive trio of Titans, and rose from his seat. Leaning across the table, he said, "There is no way I can take her back with me. She's a liability, she's dangerous, and she's—"

"—your problem," Robin reminded him. The pucker in Jason's face deepened, with no effect to Robin. "You found her. And you deal with runaways all the time. What could possibly make you think we could deal with her any better than you could?"

"Because you don't have packs of scared little kids moving in and out of this palatial mansion of yours," snarled Jason. "I have more to think of than just the other people on my team. And I can't have some psycho amnesiac tearing my base up every time she has a panic attack!"

The alley girl felt Beast Boy tugging on her arm. She pushed him away, and leaned in as a new voice took the stage. The raspy tones of Raven rolled through the door, saying, "I'm a little fuzzy as to what exactly happened."

"Yeah," Cyborg chimed in. "I got a pretty good look at her when you brought her in, and all I saw was some weird readings and a light show. Besides, she's got enough tranquilizers in her to KO a raging boxer. How much trouble could she be?"

Jason scowled. "A lot," he said.

* * *

_Two Hours Ago_

"The unit is active," Rayne barked to his comrades. They fell back in unison, shifting their collective stance in a defensive direction. "Prepare to employ lethal force if necessary."

Both the Titans and the Streetbeat stared at the 'unit' Rayne referred to, aghast and agape at the figure in the corner. The soft, skinny contours of the alley girl had become a statue of hardened alloys, smooth and white with orange trimming at its edges and joints. Before the explosion of blue-white light, she had been barely tall enough to ride a roller coaster. Now she, or whatever she had become, stood two meters strong. A dark visor scowled at them from where her frightened face had been, framed by a frilled helmet and tilted in curious examination of the room's other occupants.

"Dude…" Magnum scratched his temple with the barrel of his revolver as he stared at the still, armored form. "She turned into a robot. What kind of power is that?"

Sparks scowled. "Protocol dictates that this now be declared a Black Op."

"No survivors," agreed Zephyr.

Terra turned away from the metal creature in the corner and sneered at them to hide her own confusion. "Are you serious? We're super heroes. What are you going to do, you're just—"

The four men each drew in harmonized breaths, and then began to moan. Rayne clutched at his chest as a black sickness began eating through his skin, turning him the color of a moonless midnight sky. A sick smile plagued his features before they, too, darkened and disappeared beneath the undulating obsidian mass his skin morphed into. A second later, he vanished right out of his suit, becoming a pool of black liquid that poured forth from the cuffs of his pants. The expensive suit deflated after him, left in the lurch as the inky pool began to slither forward at incredible speed.

Zephyr's outline began to evaporate into heatless smoke. The details of his body faded into nothing an instant before he did, leaving behind a pile of emptied clothes. His ethereal remains gathered in the air, wafting about on invisible currents. When they coalesced, a ghostly face took shape among the wisps, and glared down at the children.

Sparks began to smoke as well, though he did not disappear like the others. Instead, his body became a living pyre that consumed everything touching his skin in a flash. With a roar, he became an inferno shaped like a man, with darkened spots taking the form of his eyes and mouth beneath a mane of flames.

"Finally," grunted Slate, as his body ballooned and ripped through the expensive materials swathing his body. His muscles darkened into a gray shade as they expanded and hardened. Within seconds, Slate's stature had grown to nearly ten feet, filling out his new mass into a vaguely humanoid pillar of stone. "Time to die," his chiseled face rumbled.

Jason afforded the shocked Terra a look of ire. "See what happens when you give them an opening like that?" he muttered to her, before shouting, "Streetbeat, move!"

The earth quaked with Slate's pounding fists as they crashed into the heroes' scattered formation, sending a ripple through the shattering tile that knocked them all off their feet. With a roar, the great stone beast tore his fists free from the floor and chased after Jason, intent on catching the leader and plucking his head from his shoulders like a grape. The rest of the teens weren't spared in the least by his choice, for the remaining three agents encircled them without delay.

Magnum willed his revolvers' chambers to spin, using his tactile telekinesis to power the ancient and otherwise useless weapons. He craned his neck from villain to villain to villain, trying to decide which one to attack before one of them killed him. "Fire bug, smoggy, or liquid guy. Bullets go through air, and they go through water, so…" He rolled and leapt to his feet, shouting, "Hey, Matches Mallone! Suck on this fire!"

A flurry of living smoke descended around Magnum before he could get a single shot off, cutting into him with invisible razors in a hundred different places at once. Magnum screamed as the agonizing force lifted him into the air, twisting and pulling his body, all to the tune of a disembodied laugh. Before Magnum's widened eyes, the smoke around him formed a long, spindly lance that pulled back, ready to run him through.

The formless laughter became a scream when a concussive blast of air scattered the living smoke, billowing it away from Magnum. With nothing to hold him aloft, he fell to the floor, grunting with the impact. A familiar pair of feet waited for him when he looked up. He followed their legs up to Stripwire's poker face. His brother's mechanical arm had formed a compression cannon, which whistled as it took in enough air for another shot.

"Your witless conversation appears wasted on our intruders," noted Stripwire. "I recommend you cease—"

Magnum tackled his brother aside to avoid the gout of flame that almost decapitated them both. As it was, they lost the hairs standing on the backs of their necks. Rolling with the dive, Magnum came up and brought his revolvers to life. The explosive bullets in their chambers leapt out at blinding speed and struck Sparks in the chest, blasting him back with a frustrated shriek.

Pulling a quick-load cartridge from the inside of his jacket, Magnum sneered back, "Your witless conversion…I mean, your…shut up and fight," he said in a huff.

Terra and Starfire circled the pool of living black on the floor, one on foot and the other above. Tendrils shot from the black mass' edges and caught hold of Terra's foot, yanking her with irresistible force off her feet and toward its quivering, jellied center. "Oh, man," cried Terra as the tentacle oozed across her ankle and up her leg, solidifying its hold on her. "Nasty!"

Beam of emerald rage leapt from Starfire's face, accompanied by her battle cry as she swept her glare across the Rayne creature's mass. Ghastly moans came from the living pool as its surface boiled. Pustules rose and burst in Rayne's slick skin, spraying Terra with a fine mist of black before the tendril relinquished her leg.

She scrambled away with a limp, nursing the spiral left around her shapely leg. Chemical burns made the skin puff with irritation, mixing red into the blacks and blues of her bruises. Behind her, Starfire continued her barrage into the undulating agent, much to Terra's satisfaction. "Thanks, Star," Terra shouted, and then, "Look out!"

What Terra saw became apparent to Starfire a moment too late; Sparks flared behind her with a geyser of flame that caught the Titan square in her back. The fires around her refused to dissipate, as normal flame would, and stayed instead at Spark's behest, joined soon after by more and more of his fiery life force. "Drink deep of my rage, child," preached the living firestorm with a laugh, as his flickering fingers fed more into the inferno. "Drink deep, and be cleansed."

The entire building quaked as its foundation split with a terrific crack, giving way to intense pressures coming from beneath. Wood, tile, steel, stone, and dirt sprayed out in an explosion on the floor, preceding an immense column of bedrock that shot up from the ground like a piston. The crafted column raced up beneath Sparks and caught him unawares, pressing him flat against its smooth cap with sheer acceleration, and carrying him straight into the ceiling. Another quake shook the building as the column smashed into the ceiling, retracted, and smashed upward again, all the while with Sparks trapped betwixt the two.

Terra's eyes glowed a brilliant gold as she lifted her hands, orchestrating her column to withdraw and arise again to smash Sparks into the abused ceiling a third time. "Bottoms up, creep," she sneered.

Steel crashed against stone half a room away, unnoticed by the remaining heroes as Jason battled for his life against the living statue Slate had become. The skittering blows of his sword went unnoticed against Slate's stony skin. They kicked up a shower of sparks, and drew sweat from Jason's brow, but nothing more. Slate stood by, content to let the Streetbeat leader wear himself out against arms as thick as full grown oaks. "Figures," grunted Slate. "We finally see some real action, and I get to play with the one clown in the building with a toy instead of a power."

Jason lowered his sword to block the casual swat by Slate's limp wrist. The force of the blow rattled his teeth and skidded him back over the broken bits of tile littering his beautiful base. Dropping the tip of his blade, Jason swore and prayed under his breath simultaneously, hoping that the messages didn't get crossed in transmission. He wasn't certain if he believed in God, but knew that pissing him off would only make things worse.

"Play with this," snarled Jason, as he reached into his jacket and tore free a small, round disc hidden inside. His silent prayers became labored grunts as he sprinted forward, catching Slate off-guard long enough to slide between the giant's bowed legs on his knees. As he exited the other side, he reached up and slapped the adhesive side of the disc against Slate's back, then rolled to his feet and ran.

Slate tried reaching for the disc, but his own rigid structure prevented it, and there wasn't time, besides. The agent's growl became a roar as the disc detonated a sonic charge through his body, tearing his stonework frame into an expanding cloud of pebbles and dust. Only a pair of oversized feet and ankles remained intact where Slate had stood.

Ears covered, Jason bent his head and shut his eyes for the wave of grit and the residual sonic blast that billowed around him, ruffling his jacket and itching his skin. When the air had settled, he unturtled himself and grinned. "Toys: one," he grunted to a large piece of Slate's frozen, shattered face down at his boot, and kicked it away with a flip of his toe. "Powers: nothin'."

Then the Streetbeat jumped back with a yelp as the scattered remains of the agent began sifting across the floor on their own, moving like fresh, powdered snow caught in a breeze toward a single, central goal. The larger pieces bounced and rolled after, slower than the grains, but within seconds, the entirety of what had been Slate sat gathered in a lump only a few feet from Jason. The pieces' outlines blurred, molding into one another and rising from the floor. A distinct, familiar, and angry form took shape from the rock. It loomed over Jason, flexing and stretching silently until invisible fingers sculpted a face in the center of its ugly, misshapen head.

"Good try, kid," grunted the reborn Slate. He rolled his mineral muscles, testing the limits of his recycled body. "Points for effort."

"Oh, son of a bi—" Jason twisted through the air like a rag doll as Slate's backhand swept him aside. He crashed into his command center with a crunch of the expensive equipment that broke his fall. Now unhampered, Slate strode toward their true objective, which stood all but forgotten in Sanctuary's darkest corner.

The metallic creature that had consumed the alley girl remained motionless as Slate approached. Whether its inaction stemmed from fear or from fear's absence, Slate could not tell, for the black visor of its face betrayed no emotion. But so far as Slate knew, he possessed all the information he needed: Dispatch wanted this creature (unfortunately, alive); he and his compatriots had full authorization to use whatever force necessary to do the job (lucky for him, not so much for the creature); but most importantly, this thing had killed Irons. For that, he would make sure that it screamed before it complied.

Starfire hurled a volley of starbolts into the ground, herding Rayne's inky form from the injured Stripwire and his protective older brother. The Streetbeat's technician clutched the melted stump where his compression cannon had been, and gazed up at the floating pyre that had taken his arm from him. She watched the burning creature float ever closer to the two teens, and felt powerless to stop him. Whatever power she hurled into Sparks only seemed to feed him.

"Crap-damn it," swore Magnum as he spun the open chambers of his one remaining revolver. Its twin had suffered the same fate as Stripwire's arm, and was now the only thing standing between them and a fiery end. Spent shells rained down at his feet. As he searched the interior of his jacket, he found no more red-tipped shells waiting to replace them. "I'm out of explosive rounds."

Stripwire's clenched teeth parted long enough to say, "Blue…left side…" The feedback from his lost limb ached fiercely, doubling him over on the floor.

Frowning, Magnum searched the other side of his coat. A slew of new quick-load sets waited on hooks in the lining, each set tipped with a different color. Those with the cerulean caps caught his eye. He plucked them from his jacket and jammed them into his gun. With no time to quip, Magnum channeled his telekinesis through the revolver and sent a trio of bullets hurtling into Sparks' chest.

No explosion followed the shots, disappointing Magnum and making Sparks laugh. But the villain's laughter soon became a shriek as he found himself enveloped in a cobalt cloud. Even from a distance, Magnum could feel the chill in the air that chased Sparks back and dulled the intensity of the agent's flames.

"Freeze bullets," grunted Magnum as he lined up his second shot. "Y'know, you're pretty damn lucky that you're a genius."

"We both are," Stripwire corrected him from the ground. He had a better grasp on his pain, and managed to stagger back to his feet, still clutching his ruined arm. "Those were untested. We are lucky they did not explode."

"Didn't need to know that," shot Magnum as he emptied the rest of his gun at Sparks.

Satisfied that the two could take care of themselves, Starfire surveyed the rest of the battle. Rayne hardly had any fight left in him, thanks to her own handiwork, and Terra kept Zephyr occupied by running a cloud of dirt particles through his smoky shapes to keep him incorporeal. Then Starfire gasped, spying the last of their attackers as he lumbered toward the corner, and what she could only assume was still the alley girl.

"No!" cried Starfire, racing through the air. She lanced down and wrapped her arms around Slate's shoulder, squeezing with a grip that could bend cold steel. Slate's immeasurable strength barely felt it. Undaunted, Starfire pulled upward, straining to slow his march. "You will not harm her," insisted the Titan. "I will not allow it!"

Slate rolled his shoulder, breaking Starfire's grip with laughable ease. His opposite hand shot around and wrapped around her graceful neck. Practice allowed him to apply enough pressure to make his grasp unbreakable, while leaving her neck just shy of broken. The sound of her own vertebrae popping overwhelmed her ears, cutting out the first half of Slate's rumbling threat.

"—e's going to watch you die," said Slate with a snicker. "Just like the rest of your little friends. Then, we'll take her apart, piece by piece."

The monster in the corner watched impassively as two creatures struggled before its glaring, cyclopean visor. One, it did not recognize; he stood well above the rest, made entirely of stone, and possessed of a predatory grin that the monster found distasteful, even for its perverse liking. The other it did recognize; this orange one had shown it kindness, a strange concept that the monster found not unpleasant, if somewhat unfathomable. Regardless, the monster now knew who its enemy was.

"And that's just for start—" Slate's laughing predictions cut short with a howl of agony as a hand crashed through the arm holding Starfire aloft. The limb shattered at the elbow, severing the forearm from the rest of his body.

Starfire dropped to the ground and rolled away, clawing at the lifeless hand stuck around her throat. With no power to sustain its strength, she overcame its stony fingers and tore it free from her neck, gasping in precious air. Her emerald confusion searched back in the direction of Slate, looking for her savior. What she found drew her breath away once more.

Slate screamed and grasped at his stump of an elbow. Next to him, the armored creature that had taken his arm stood in quizzical study of his reaction. Stone veins lifted from his neck as his anger quintupled. "You rotten bitch," he screamed. "I swear, I'll—"

The monster had no interest in Slate's intentions. It moved at blinding speed, thrusting a compacted fist straight through the golem's chest. Slate's words ended in a choking squeak as his torso evacuated itself out his back in a hail of stone chunks. A lightning sweep of the armored monster's leg shattered his gaping face. Another tore the remains of his torso from his hips, scattering it across the room. Without a body for balance, Slate's lower half toppled and shattered into dust.

"We may have an issue, gentlemen." Zephyr tore through Terra with a razor wind, paying her delicious screaming no mind. His focus belonged to the active unit that had just shattered Slate within seconds. "I will attempt to incapacitate the unit."

Zephyr only wasted his breath, a poor choice for a creature of the air. As his murky form drew near to the monster, its armored hands spread akimbo, then slammed together. A metal chime tore through the room as the monster's mighty clap ripped through the air, tossing Zephyr's insubstantial body about. He flew back at twice the speed he had come, spreading into smog that choked the room and left him powerless.

A face sank back from the wounded surface of the Rayne puddle. "I believe a withdrawal is in order, gentlemen," he said. "Retreat at once."

Sparks blasted a hole in Sanctuary's wall with a bolt of fire, and slipped through before Magnum could punish him further with another freezing barrage. Both Rayne and Zephyr slithered out, on the ground and in the air, through the gaping hole where the front door had been. Slate's disjointed pieces didn't even bother recombobulating, and instead bounced and rolled after his associates as best as they could.

Still short of breath, Starfire had no inclination to chase them. She saw similar opinions painted in the pained faces of her friends as they picked themselves up from the battlefield. Then a clanking footstep at her side reminded Starfire that the danger had not yet passed.

She looked over into the soulless visor of her rescuer. The armored being stood over Starfire, looming, statuesque once more, save for the tilt of its cruel face as it examined her. Starfire rose slowly with hands raised. She did not run, but nor did she move toward it. Either could prove fatal.

"Please," Starfire said to the monster in a quiet voice. "The battle is won. There is no need for further violence." When the creature did not move, she added, "I will keep my promise. No one shall harm you."

A hollow, metallic groan drifted from the smooth faceplate bolted where the creature's mouth would have been. It staggered back, suddenly drained of its strength. Smooth curves suddenly split all over its body, becoming widening seams filled with a blinding blue light that forced Starfire's eyes away. When she could look again, the alley girl stood in the monster's place, wearing a half-lidded look of confusion.

"So loud," whispered the alley girl as the world spun around her. "Always…."

Starfire leapt forward to catch the alley girl as she fell. The frail teen didn't lose consciousness, but Starfire could tell that her mind was nowhere near Sanctuary and its battle scars. The girl's eyes gazed up through a distant glaze. Her lips formed words that never came to be, speaking in unheard tones to someone Starfire couldn't see.

Terra staggered up to Starfire, followed closely by the rest of the victorious defenders. She clutched the shredded remains of her uniform, nursing the thousand microscopic cuts left from the battle. "Is she okay?" said Terra between gasps. A thin trail of blood trickled from her split lip.

A shake of Starfire's head answered. The golden alien pulled her communicator from her belt and flipped it open, pressing the panic button built into the device's side. It buzzed beneath her thumb, assuring her that the nearest Titan would be told of their emergency as fast as the radio waves could speak of it. "She needs help," Starfire insisted.

* * *

"…after that," finished Jason, "You showed up and helped us haul her back here." He gave Robin a pointed look as he added, "And I think here is where she needs to stay." 

"Not a chance," Robin countered. He matched Jason's glare, leaning across the table just as his counterpart did. "I won't risk compromising Titans Tower any longer than I have to."

Raven stood and pushed both of them back into their seats. Her fearsome glare quelled their own comparatively amateurish attempts, and quieted their protests before they could even voice them. "There is a third option," she reminded them. "We can turn her over to the authorities."

"Feds?" The word left Jason's lips with a sneer, and dripped with naked dislike. "That'd be worse than leaving her in Sanctuary. Chances are, they'll just brainwash what little she's packing upstairs, and then turn her back on us." He folded his arms and grunted. "Those suits that trashed Sanctuary were probably Feds, anyhow."

Reluctant agreement twisted Cyborg's lower lip. "Paranoid or not," he admitted, "Jason's got a point. We can't just hand her over to someone else and expect her to be safe. For that matter, we can't know if whoever we give her to will be safe, either, if what Jason says is true."

"True?" Jason snorted, slighted. "The proof's downstairs patching themselves up in your infirmary right now."

That 'proof' came wandering through the hall that very moment, covered in topical salves and dressed in fresh uniforms. The girls breathed easy, for none of their injuries had been serious enough to warrant anything except a few bandages and a handful of painkillers. Both were eager for an update on their mysterious guest.

Starfire's eyes lit up at the sight of the alley girl, and then dulled in confusion as she saw her crouched outside of the Conference Room with Beast Boy at her side. "Friend?" she called, floating toward the alley girl. "What are you—"

The alley girl didn't so much as blink; her eyes remained locked on the wall as she listened in on the happenings within the room. Beast Boy was kind enough to shush Starfire for her, having abandoned his quest to pull the girl away from the door in favor of his own curiosity. Exchanging glances and shrugs with Terra, she followed suit, and knelt down outside the door opposite the alley girl and her green guide. Meanwhile, the conference within took place, none the wiser.

"Why not contact the Justice League?" suggested Cyborg. The suggestion earned him an immediate and sour look from Robin, one he should have expected. "Oh, come on. I know you don't like asking for help—"

"We don't need their help," said Robin.

"—but," insisted Cyborg, "They probably have resources we don't that could help this girl. If we can do anything for her, we gotta try, man."

"I'm not so sure we should," Robin countered. Dead silence followed his statement. He looked around at the dissatisfied quiet aimed at him, and matched it with a masked scowl. "Let's look at the facts: We've got a girl with no memory who knows all of us, our identities, our powers, and probably our weaknesses. She's already demonstrated incredible power, and she's admitted to being unable to control it. We need to face facts." With a heavy sigh, Robin finished, "We might be looking at containment, not rescue."

Raven noticed it first, thanks to her empathy. She looked over into the doorway, now possessed with a willowy frame bearing wide, shaking eyes upon the conference. Clearing her throat, Raven tilted her hood in the door's direction, guiding the others' eyes to the trembling visage of the alley girl.

Tears worked at the edges of the alley girl's vision, blurring the face of the only people in the world she knew. "So that's it," she choked. "That's the answer. You're going to lock me up?"

"It's…" With all the diplomacy of the chair he sat in, Robin straightened and reinforced his firm tone. "It's one of the options we're considering."

"Oh." Her voice remained calm in the wake of such a grave topic, though not without considerable shaking. "Beast Boy said you were heroes. I believed him. I thought you might be able to save me from those men…to save me from myself." Turning away, she lowered her gaze to the floor and bit her bottom lip. "I guess it'll be the same, no matter where I go. Won't it?"

"Miss, please," began Robin.

"It's not fair," whispered the alley girl. She took off in a sprint down the unfamiliar halls of Titans Tower, neither knowing nor caring where she headed, so long as it took her somewhere else.

Robin closed his eyes and rubbed at the covered bridge of his nose, blowing out an impatient breath. When he opened his eyes again, his breath sucked back in at the slender figure who had replaced the alley girl in the doorway. Graceful golden beauty folded in on itself with uncharacteristic repugnance, drawing deeply from a well of shame Robin didn't even know he had. "Starfire," he said, surprised. "You…Are you okay?"

She turned her nose up at him, waving off his pitiful concern. "I will go see to our guest," she told him with a tone that froze the room. "I suggest you come up with better alternatives to your…_plan_." With that, she floated down the hall, refusing to acknowledge his stammering explanations.

Robin groaned. "Hell," he muttered, dropping his face into his fingertips to massage away the grief pounding within. Then his communicator chirped, calling his attention to his belt. With a flick of his wrist, he summoned the device to his hand and opened it, answering its call. When he did, his mood did not improve. "Double hell," he amended, rising to his feet.

* * *

Once she was clear of the Conference Room, Starfire allowed her ire to fade, feeling concern pour into its place and hasten her flight. Muffled sobs teased the air, guiding her to a hallway that ran the lower half of the Tower's cross. Windows spanned the length of the corridor, offering the Titans a panoramic view of Jump City and its glistening spires. The alley girl crouched against the opposite wall, sniveling, her legs curled up against her chest as she gazed out at the booming metropolis. 

Starfire approached cautiously, landing so that her steps might be heard. "I apologize for what Robin said," Starfire offered. "He is…difficult, at times, but he truly means well."

"Yeah," said the alley girl. She sniffed, and wiped her face clean with the back of her arm. "But what if he's right? What if I'm too dangerous to keep anywhere?"

The comment hung between them as Starfire knelt down. She leaned back against the wall as the alley girl did, and looked out at the city. "Robin is wrong," Starfire said without hesitation or doubt. "You are a good person. You saved me."

"I don't remember saving you. Jeez…" The girl sniffed again, smothering a bitter laugh in her palm. "There's so much I don't remember. My entire life is gone, and it's not enough. This thing inside of me keeps making me black out, making me miss more. What if it takes—"

A hand rested atop hers, quieting her quickened rambling. "I swore that no harm would come to you," Starfire reminded her. "And a princess of Tamaran always keeps her oaths. So long as I draw breath, I will do so to protect you."

Another bitter laugh escaped the alley girl's tear-soaked lips. "Why are you being so nice to me? Don't you know I could go crazy and kill everybody?"

"I am always nice to my friends," Starfire told her.

The simple comment stopped the alley girl cold. She looked up at Starfire, whose gaze had not left her city. "Friends?"

"Would you like to be my friend?"

"I…I dunno. I've never had a friend before." In a small voice, the alley girl asked, "What do I have to do?"

Starfire smiled her warmest smile, the kind capable of banishing all the cold out of one's body, until all that remained was good, and peace. "Simply be my friend as well," she said.

Before the alley girl could answer, the corridor exploded with scarlet light and blaring klaxons. Starfire was on her feet in an instant, and helped the frightened alley girl to her feet. The question never left the alley girl's lips, answered by Robin's voice as it crackled from a hidden intercom. "Titans," he announced, "We have intruders on the island. Four of them…wearing suits."

"It's them," murmured the alley girl. She shrank within her borrowed clothes, growing small and afraid. "They found me again."

"It would seem so," said Starfire, scowling.

"What do we do?"

Emerald fury burned in Starfire's eyes, heating the air and chilling her voice all at once. "We make sure they cannot find you a third time," she informed her friend.

**To Be Continued**


	22. Tek: Victim

**

* * *

Teen Titans**

**Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Tek**: _Victim_

A balmy breeze kissed the island home of Titans Tower. It brought a sweet, salty sea smell that made breathing a treat. The sun shone overhead, but cotton ball clouds kept its rays reigned in: Warm, but not too hot. With the breeze, everything felt just right.

Perfect killing weather.

Four would-be conquerors lorded over the island, standing atop a rock outcropping that overlooked the landscape. Only the Tower topped their throne. Shining in the sun, the Titans' home stood as a gleaming monument to everything decent in this world, and served as constant reminder to those who would do wrong that champions still existed to thwart their dark deeds. But those four weren't cowed by the enormous letter. They knew that 'good' and 'evil' were meaningless words, monosyllabic fairy tales told to appease the terrified masses. Those four knew that good and evil were lies; there was only the righteous and the guilty. If you did not stand with them on the side of righteousness, you stood for anarchy and sin, and they would purge you forthwith.

"Gentlemen," said Rayne as they studied the Tower, "We have arrived."

"Titans Tower," breathed Zephyr. His angular features set themselves into reluctant awe. "This presents us with somewhat of a challenge."

Sparks nodded. "The Titans proved unpredictable in our previous encounter."

"Only two of them," Zephyr reminded him.

"Yes," said Sparks, "Only the alien and the earth bender. United with the others, they will undoubtedly be more formidable."

Rayne raised a brow at his fellows. Mirth spread across his pencil lips. "Is that the stench of fear I smell, gentlemen? Fear induced by the thought of teenaged metahumans living in an alphabetical, architectural nightmare? For shame," he chided.

"Not fear," insisted Zephyr.

"Caution," amended Sparks. "We have all downloaded the Titans' profiles. We are prepared."

Zephyr nodded emphatically. "Merely cautious."

The sounds of an avalanche rumbled from Slate's knuckles as he rolled them into his palm. His teeth gnashed, making a similar sound. "Why the hell are we just standing here for?" Gray tones began sublimating the color of his skin. "I'll tear this eyesore down, and we'll just kill whatever crawls out of the wreckage."

Rayne slapped his hand across Slate's chest, halting the giant's transformation. "Patience, Mister Slate. The Titans are no threat, so long as they are handled properly."

"They are six," noted Zephyr.

"We are one," Sparks countered.

"We will liquidate the Titans as the situation calls for. But our protocols do not mandate a loss of common courtesy." He turned his attention back to the gleaming tower. Visions of the impending battle danced behind his dark eyes. Victory waited for him, if only he exercised the necessary foresight and restraint to take it. "We will wait until we are invited, and then we will proceed."

The rocks around them sprang to life, rising along hidden tracks. Long barrels shot up from beneath them, wriggling free from the earth to reveal a full array of plasma cannons. Their apertures swung 'round, splitting their aims between the four. Sapphire power sizzled at their tips, ready to hail upon them at their next move.

Stone shafts joined the plasma cannons in their ascent. Steel supplanted the stone after the first few inches, revealing disc-launching columns. Explosive discs, freeze discs, incendiary discs, and a host of other dangerous ordinances waited behind armored plating. A single, scarlet optic grace the face of each launcher to guide their shots true.

Still more ground tore into the air, making way for a small army of silvery training drones. Stone and dust poured from their chasses as they stood in formation against the four. Boomerang-shaped heads surrounded the intruders, swiveling in their direction. Sharpened claws rose in a unified gesture of halting. "Cease and desist," buzzed the lead drone, "Or we will employ extreme force."

The stonework pallor returned to Slate's skin. Seams in his suit popped in succession as his body ballooned. "Tell me that was an invite," he grumbled.

Rayne tilted his brow. "Indeed."

* * *

Cyborg sat behind the command console in Ops. Reports streaming in from the island's listening posts reflected off the steel plating of his face from the screen, turning his asymmetrical scowl into a living mosaic of the danger at hand. But the rest of the Titans, standing a stone's throw away with their two guests, didn't need to see the reports. They could hear explosions ringing out in the distance, bracketed by the sizzle of dissipating plasma. There was no surprise amongst them when Cyborg announced, "They've entered the tertiary defense perimeter."

"That will not hold them for long," said Starfire. She traded glances with Terra. The memories that clung to Starfire were evident behind Terra's eyes as well. "These foes possess immense power. I do not believe our automated defenses will stop them."

Swiveling away from the monitor, Cyborg pushed out of his chair. His glower deepened. "Won't be a walk in the park for them," he seethed aloud.

Jason slammed his fist into his open hand, chomping at the bit. The hilt of his broadsword waggled as he rolled his shoulders and bobbed on the balls of his feet. "Don't have to stop 'em," he said. "Just soften 'em up a little." At Cyborg's skeptical look, he said, "They trashed my house. Nobody trashes my house but me."

The alley girl staggered back. Her eyes stuck to the security footage on the main monitor, glued there by horror. Her legs struck the couch, plopping her down. "Won't stop it," she murmured. A soft buzz pierced the tranquilized haze of her mind. Whispers filled her ears. "Can't…" she gasped. "…won't…"

Robin shot the alley girl a concerned glance. "Beast Boy," he barked, "Get the girl downstairs. Secure the basement. And get her another dosage," he added with a meaningful glare.

"No!" She scrambled back against the arm of the couch, recoiling from Beast Boy's touch. Beast Boy likewise pulled back as the alley girl clutched at her head. A grimace twisted her face as she curled, fetal, on the couch. "Not gonna change," she whimpered. "I'm not gonna change, I'm not gonna…"

A soft touch eased the alley girl's moans silent. Her gaze traveled up the hand on her arm, traversing golden skin to reach the soulful eyes bathing her in emerald calm. "It will be all right. Go with Beast Boy. We will protect you."

When Beast Boy reached for her again, the alley girl allowed him to take her by the arm. Her eyes remained locked with Starfire's though she could not return her encouraging smile. Beast Boy paused long enough to accept a med kit from Cyborg before he led her toward the door. "C'mon, darlin'," he drawled in good cheer. "Let's mosey on downstairs."

Starfire's smile lasted until the doors snapped shut behind them. Her fists clenched and trembled, and her eyes narrowed and flashed. The darkness of her look didn't waver when a something tumbled up from the chaos far below and smacked into the window just inches from her head. Spider web cracks leapt across the armored glass as part of the window gave way, allowing part of a metal boomerang to protrude into Ops.

"Halt," warbled a training drone's head. Its oculars flickered and died an instant before its voice gave one last, "Or we will…empllllllloooooooyyyy….exxxxxxxxxxxttrrrreeeeeeeeemmmmme…"

"Sounds like somebody's knocking," quipped Cyborg.

Terra lowered her goggles, fitting them across amber-lit eyes. "Guess we'd better go open the door."

* * *

Steps and corridors flew b too fast for the alley girl to follow. It was all she could do to keep up with the green changeling dragging her into the tower's bowels. The panic working her stomach over intensified with every step. Beast Boy's clammy hand and forced smiles aimed back did little to calm her nerves. "Where are we—"

"Less talk," he panted, nearly knocked them both down a flight of stairs. "More walk." They careened through the hallways. His speed bounced him of the walls and whiplashed the alley girl into them behind him. "Robin says to duck and cover, we duck and cover. They can handle the meet-and-greet upstairs. Our job is to keep you safe."

The alley girl winced as he bashed her into another wall. Her bruises fed into the monstrous ball of fear in her gut. "But I'm what's—"

He jerked her again, threatening to pull her arm from its socket. They streaked down the final steps, reaching the featureless floor of the basement. "Later," he said. "Computer, activate the defense…thingie." He leaned against a cardboard box to catch his breath. "Access code: Salad Head."

_"User ID confirmed,"_ a feminine voice replied through the PA system. _"Invalid command. Please clarify."_

"Oh. Uh….activate the Internal Security Lockdown…thingie."

_"Specify: Localized or—"_

His eyes lit up. "Yeah, that one. The loco one."

Metal shutters swallowed the door they had just come through. More riveted panels slid out from above, tripling the thickness of their walls with ridiculous redundancy. The air vents overhead sealed themselves with steely clangs. Ratcheting servos dismantled the stairs from the inside, drawing its components down into the floor.

"There," said Beast Boy. He brushed his hands clean, as if he himself had bolted each shutter into place just then. "Snug as a bug in an armor-plated rug." With his breath returned, he hefted his med kit onto a box and popped it open. Uncertain eyes scanned its innards, seeking out the right emergency hypodermic. "Cyborg's hobby should keep us safe for a while."

The alley girl stepped his way, turning to view Cyborg's handiwork. Defeatism tempered her awe, awed though she was. "You don't understand," she said exasperatedly. "The danger isn't outside, it's in here. It's in me." She slumped against the box, sliding down to the floor. Her fingers worked against the stubble on her scalp. "And you just locked it in."

Beast Boy glanced down at her with a syringe in hand. "Take it easy," he scoffed. "You need to relax right now. Concentrate on your breathing. Calm blue ocean. One hand clapping, that sort of thing." He paused, frowned, and then tried to clap with his free hand. It cramped up after a few seconds' attempt.

"It doesn't matter," she said. Even now, the beast clawed at her back from the inside, roaring for its freedom. The rest of her innards grinded inside of her like wet gravel at its touch. "Maybe it'd be better if they took me away."

"Pshh. Horse plop." Beast Boy knelt down beside her. He flicked the side of the hypo. The reason for flicking it didn't exist in that vast expanse between his elfish ears, but he had seen it done on television, and that was good enough for him. "And I know a few things about horse plop, so don't even try to argue."

The tip of his needle found a vein in her arm in a burst of competence. She felt a rush of cool enter her skin, and gasped as a tingling numb climbed her arm. "You…"

He rubbed her arm, chasing the brief tingle away. His voice helped the spread of a dull calm that swept across her body. "You have something inside of you," he told her. An easygoing smile swam in front of her eyes. "Something bad. That's a pretty common thing around here." Beast Boy's gaze dropped for a heartbeat to examine his own, gloved hands. "But it's what you with that thing that counts."

The words hung above them, eventually lost as the sounds of the battle began to filter through their safe room. Distant thunder rattled the room's rivets, breaking through the alley girl's chemical calm and forcing a humiliating shriek from her chest. She reddened as still more thunder came soon after, curling her body into a ball of fear that resembled the one inside her.

"But right now," Beast Boy said, sliding down next to her, "I think we shouldn't do anything but stay put."

* * *

Sparks held the remains of the last training drone in his fiery hands. Its piteous squeal drew a smile through his flames before he melted the parts in a single burst. Vaporized metal steamed from his hands as he brushed them clean. "What a brisk jaunt that was," he said with a satisfied sigh.

Black, liquid scythes cleaved through the row of laser emplacements lined above the Tower's doors. Rayne's limbs telescoped back to him as his shimmering outline took on a more human shape. "Indeed." He stared up at the immense Tower doors. Despite all their bravado, he knew that getting through six inches of reinforced steel would be no small feat. What waited for them inside would be more challenging. They could not afford to let confidence supplant caution. "Be alert, gentlemen."

"Of course." Above them, the shredded pieces of Cyborg's defensive measures hung inside Zephyr's ethereal form. He willed them to drop, raining thousands of dollars' worth of their own equipment on the Titans' doorstep. "But you must admit," the ghostly cloud added, "If their defenses are any indicator…"

The boast trailed off as the great gates before them cracked apart. Six teens stood behind the sweeping curtain of steel, waiting with weapons raised and powers glowing. Their formation blocked the palatial interior of the Tower. Their faces hardened and set at the sight of their enemies. Their eyes drifted through the trio at hand, narrowed, waiting.

"You children have no inkling of the danger you court," Rayne announced. He stepped forward, raising his arms in a peaceable gesture. The faces of those who stood against him shimmered in reflection on his dark surface, rippling with his every movement. "The creature you protect is more dangerous than you can possibly imagine."

Zephyr whispered through the air, backing Rayne. "She will destroy you," warned the living smoke. His face roiled at his cloud's edge. Drifting eyes lifted with concern. "To keep her is folly. Suicide."

"Your only chance," insisted their team's living inferno, "Is to turn her over to us. Only we have the necessary resources to properly dispose of the faulty unit."

"The choice is clear, children," said Rayne. "That thing in your Tower comes with us. Do not resist. What you protect out of ignorance will only be the death of you."

A blue beam bridged the distance between the teens and Rayne with a thunderclap. It struck Rayne's head and plowed through. Rayne's head spattered and scattered at Cyborg's sonic touch. The dark liquid spilled across the ground. Some sizzled as it struck Sparks' flickering outline.

Standing at the door's edge, Cyborg leaned against its massive frame. His cannon mechamorphed back into a hand, which rose to tap a small sign bolted to the Tower's exterior: 'No Solicitors.' A smile lit the twinkle in his stony eye. "Can't you guys read?"

The liquid at Rayne's severed neck swelled into a replacement head. His new scowl deepened, becoming inhuman. "A poor choice," he noted.

"Your last," added Sparks. He summoned concentrated flames into his burning hands. Deadly jets leapt high from his palms. They cast hellish shadows behind him and his companions, and lit the heroes' faces with red.

Robin glared. His fists mimicked Sparks', lighting with scarlet energy. "Titans," he growled, "Two on one. Go!" The floor inside the Tower exploded with a black, liquid piledriver's strike. Six teens rode the shockwave out and into the battle.

Cyborg and Terra leapt over a whipping tendril and charged for its center. The ground rippled beneath Terra's feet, surfing her after Cyborg's pounding steps. With a roar, she summoned boulders from the outcroppings and hurled them into the living black bile. Rayne sprayed up around her earth-shattering attacks, and then scattered into a fine mist as Terra willed the boulders to explode.

Millions of stone shards covered in the dark liquid bounced across the ground. They skittered beneath Cyborg's soles as he slid to a stop. He already had his sonic cannon turned toward Sparks, who peppered the round with fire to keep Jason and Robin dancing. "Nice job, Rock 'n' Roll," he called, powering up for a blast.

Wire-thin lines leapt at Cyborg from each of the slimy shards. They attacked with uncanny strength, puncturing Molybdenum steel like needles through fabric, and tore into Cyborg from every direction. Cyborg fell to his knees, screaming, as the wispy tendrils tore apart his circuitry and sliced into his skin, cutting deep into the pseudo-musculature underneath. He clawed at his face, half blind, as the stuff shattered his optic implant and dug in, shredding the sensitive equipment inside.

"Cyborg," shrieked Terra, before a living wind swept her into the air. Zephyr's blanketing touch cut into her all over her body. She drew in a breath to scream, and choked as he worked his way into her throat. He scratched her from without and burned her from within, smothering her screams into irregular, hyperventilating gasps that worsened her fate.

Black ether wrapped around Terra and yanked her free. She fell limp into Raven's arms. "Starfire, help Cyborg," Raven said, and abandoned her chase of the living smoke.

Starfire dove, cradling twin starbolts between curled hands. She brought them together, combining their matrices and adding to their strength. The emerald globe throbbed in her grip. Starfire thrust her hands with a shout and spread the globe into a wall of energy. As it grew and spiraled into her teammate, her eyes burst with bright beams that cut a perimeter around him, freeing Cyborg from Rayne's tentacles. The green wave front washed over Cyborg. Its power slammed him into the ground and knocked the wind out of him, but it also evaporated the lingering bits of Rayne still clinging to his skin.

She flew down and helped him up, careful of the oozing cuts on his arms. "Friend, you still function?" she asked, hovering at this side.

Cyborg coughed up a load of black and blood onto the ground. The implant hidden in his organic eye brought damage reports flashing in his vision. Beneath his thick shell, his components were surprisingly delicate, a fact Rayne had exploited to his fullest advantage. "I'll live, Star," he grunted. When he tried to stand under his own power, his legs buckled under his own weight. Her quick hands and alien strength kept him righted. "I just won't enjoy it for a while," he added ruefully.

Starfire's reply ended in a yelp when a fireball struck her in the chest, throwing her to the ground. Cyborg shot her a glance and cried her name before looking to the attack's source. He caught two flaming fists on his chin and tumbled, caught in a conflagration contrail as Sparks flew overhead, laughing. "Pitiful display, children," taunted Sparks.

A bird bolt slammed into Sparks from below, ending the jeer. Three more sent him juking to the side, where a streaking disc embossed with an 'S' waited for him. The disc exploded, smearing Sparks' flame form across the sky. A wail erupted from the loosed fires, and gave his attackers below reason to cheer.

"How d' you like me now," crowed Jason. He never noticed the dark, liquid column rising behind him.

Gathering energy for further bird bolt barrages, Robin's warning came from Jason's cry as a snaking tendril snatched Jason up and tossed him aside. Robin spun and fired blind. His burning bolts passed through empty air as Rayne's amorphous body split around the energy and kept coming.

Dark liquid poured over Robin, wrapping around his limbs and drawing them back. As the Titan struggled in the inhuman grasp, a blade of smoke slashed across his chest. His tunic split diagonally, but his durable skin held. Robin grunted as Zephyr struck again. The living smoke laughed as his next stroke drew a ribbon of blood to Robin's bare chest. "You're out of your league," the malevolent air hissed. His liquid companion chuckled.

"And you just gave us stationary targets," said Robin.

Starbolts sizzled through Zephyr, superheating his insubstantial body. His air blade evaporated with a shriek. Rayne howled in tandem as a stun missile struck Robin, discharging a blast of sonics. Robin stood against the blast of sound, but Rayne couldn't resist, and was torn away.

Once free, Robin leapt up and blasted scarlet energies into Sparks, who had flown up behind his rescuers. Sparks suffered the blows and backed away, allowing the teens to regroup. Robin landed from his leap next to Starfire. Wisps of green still wafted from her fingertips. Her other hand she used to keep Cyborg standing. When Robin tried meeting her eyes, she looked away. "Thanks," he said anyway.

"Of course," she mumbled.

"Guys gotta real teamwork vibe going," grunted Cyborg. He watched the elemental trio circle around them, creating a perimeter they could not escape. Their circle then began to shrink. Heartless snickering surrounded the Titans, sparking fear the consumed their former confidence. "Take one on—"

"And the others smack you down." Jason limped in. The tip of his broadsword trailed through the dirt in his wake. "They're good," he grunted.

A scowl infected Robin's mask. "But they can't win with these hit-and-run tactics forever." Then he blinked. "And they know that." Looking to Jason, he asked, "How many—"

"Four." Jason scowled. "Big one, like I said earlier. Some kinda rock monster."

Starfire glanced about, searching. Eternal hope still sprung from her endless heart. "Perhaps our defenses…"

Cyborg sneered self-depreciatingly. "Not with our luck."

"He's going for the girl," said Robin, throwing a glance back at the Tower's open entrance. He hadn't seen anything move through since the battle began. "Probably underground. Terra, you have the best chance—"

"We have a problem." Raven crouched on the ground among her teammates, draped in darkness beneath her cloak. Violet eyes pierced the shadows of her hood, half-lidded with a forced indifference. But even Raven could not keep a spark of concern from her gaze as it surveyed the still body cradled in her arms as she wiped the blood and dirt from Terra's face. "She isn't breathing."

* * *

The battle raged on over their heads, separated by a hundred yards of solid rock that transmitted each shout and blast with frightening clarity. Each explosion sent the alley girl further into her fetal curl and away from Beast Boy's arm, which wrapped around her as best as it could. Beast Boy tried to joke his way through her fear, but each comedic shell bounced off without effect.

Her whimpered softened his brazen voice. "Hey, c'mon. You may know our names, but you don't know the Titans. They won't stop until these bad guys are busted."

**"That won't help if you're already dead."**

The ominous words filtered through the walls. Both teens shot to their feet, twisting their heads about in a vain attempt to pinpoint its source. Beast Boy shoved the girl behind him, using her as an axis as he turned in a circle. "Dude, you don't wanna play hide and seek with a guy who can turn into a bloodhound," he called to the empty room.

Malevolent chuckling bounced from wall to wall. **"Turn into whatever you like. I'll still break you in half."**

"We're trapped," moaned the alley girl. Her fears gathered back in her core, piercing the tranquil haze injected into her body. "He's here, and we're—"

Beast Boy silenced her with a look. "So, which one are you?" he called out. "Terra told me all about you guys. Not that it matters," he announced loudly as he backed up, herding the alley girl with outstretched arms while his eyes scanned the room. "None of you stand a chance against the Beastster, anyhow."

**"When they told me I'd be going in, I'd hoped for a real challenge. Maybe the alien, or the demon. But I'll settle for the ADHD shapeshifter."** The voice, muffled by metal, began to manifest more clearly at the opposite end of the room. **"You'll all be dead soon anyway."**

A rivet on the far wall burst out. Sand streamed from the hole, spilling across the floor. Another rivet popped out, and then another, pouring gallons of sand into the basement each second. As the pile grew, features began to take shape at its edges; an arm solidified and rose out, lifting a head and a set of shoulders from the sand next. Two fully formed arms pressed onto the concrete to raise the torso connecting them. Legs soon dangled underneath, shaking the floor as they slammed the full weight of the creature to his feet.

"So let's get started." Slate's face stretched into a beastly grin. Thunderous steps swept him across the room. His massive arms swept aside the boxed odds and ends in the basement, leaving nothing to stand between him and the teens. Within seconds, Beast Boy and his shaking charge waded in Slate's shadow, staring up, up, up at his looming scowl.

Beast Boy swallowed his uncertainty and stood his ground. Such a move would have been bolder if they weren't already backed up against the wall. "Yeah," he shot back, "Let's." He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted at the ceiling, "Computer: Command Undo! Access Code: Green Genes!"

The harmonious voice lilted, "Acknowledged," before the floor beneath them leapt up, reconstructing the stairs case as per Beast Boy's orders. Slate's massive bulk couldn't fit between the narrow railings; he flew back with the force of the stairs' resurrection and landed on his back. The avalanche blast of his fall and his frustrated snarl both became lost in the sound of ratcheting metal shutters retracting back into the wall.

The alley girl shrieked and grasped Beast Boy's arm as they rode the rising staircase back up to their entrance. There, the last metal panel whisked upward, revealing the doorway back out into the Tower's labyrinth corridors.

"Run," Beast Boy said. "Run and hide."

She panicked, looking between the strange corridor and her assailant, who had already regained his footing. "Where do I go?"

He shoved her through the door, and shouted, "Run!" The plastic panel next to the door crunched beneath his palm, shutting and locking the doors behind her. With any luck, they might hold the stone behemoth an extra half second. Beast Boy would take anything he could get. Turning around, he glared down the channel of railings and taunted with a confidence he did not feel. "Okay, Mount Crushmore. You want her? You go through me first."

Boisterous laughter tickled Beast Boy's eardrums and buzzed through his chest, emanating from the creature at the stairs' bottom. Slate straddled the width of the railing and grinned up at the Titan. "Guess what, Junior. Not a problem." His laughter became a shout as his arms thrust out, rocketing up the distance between them.

**To Be Continued**


	23. Tek: Hunter

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Tek**: _Hunter_

"Six little children," the choking air sang, circling those of his lyrics, "Trapped and all alone…" Smoke rose from the craters surrounding Titans Tower, feeding Zephyr's ethereal body. His mass tripled and stretched, forming a third of the trinity circle trapping the teens.

"No one to help them, no one to phone…" dark waters continued, drawing a ring around the teens' feet in the blackened earth. Rayne's acidic body left a glassy sheen on the ground behind him, a path of muddy glass.

A deadly pyre blazed over their heads, raining heat and embers upon their cowering heads. "As green as grass, as stubborn as stone…" crooned Sparks from within his skin of fire.

"The six will die here," finished Zephyr, "On the steps of their home." His wafting face sneered from the folds of his smoke.

Robin scowled at the trio. Much as he hated to admit it, he couldn't disagree with them at that point. He and Starfire stood back to back in the center of the villains' ring, rotating concurrently to keep three hundred and sixty degrees of inadequate coverage. Their hands burned red and green with infrequent bolts whenever one of the trio grew bold. The shots did little to deter the living elements. "Raven, how is she?" asked Robin, never taking his eyes from the threat at hand.

The 'she' he referred to lolled like a blonde rag doll in Raven's arms. Her face oozed with shallow cuts, dripping from her slackened jaw and onto the sorceress' sullied shroud. With her preternatural senses, Raven could detect the life draining from Terra's motionless chest with alarming clarity. "Bad," said Raven.

"Lousy time to up and die," snarled Jason. He leaned heavily on his sword, which had proved useless in the fight anyway. The arsenal concealed beneath his jacket had waned to almost nothing, and his battle-hardened muscles were all but done in. "And I don't even live here," he muttered to himself.

Cyborg knelt at his side, attending to the text flying inside his remaining eye via his implants. "Systems are coming back online," he grunted. "Vision's still shot." He fingered the shattered lens of his left eye. A grimace overtook the organic folds of his face.

"Perhaps we could retreat to the opposite side of the island," suggested Starfire in a sideways whisper. "Our defenses there are yet untapped, and might aid us."

"Screw running. I say we fight."

"We need a plan."

"I just gave us one. Pick one of 'em and start swinging."

"We must not forget our friends inside."

"Pick one? That's nuts."

"They may be in great peril."

"Your defenses sure didn't do the trick."

"Say what?"

"If everyone could just shut up for a moment," announced Raven. She bowed her face to Terra's. A deep breath rushed to and from her lips. Resolving herself, Raven closed her physical eyes and opened an entirely different set, extending her senses into the injured shell in her arms. The spark of life within faded rapidly, but it still existed.

Reaching in with invisible hands, Raven took hold of the damaged tissue lining Terra's esophagus and lungs. With but a moment's hesitation to brace herself, she willed the cells to regenerate. Terra's chemical burns reverted, as if reversed on a film, and restored her respiration with a desperate gasp. The cost of the spell hammered home on Raven, sending intense impulses of pain all throughout her chest, as though she were reliving the attack that had nearly killed Terra.

Terra rolled from Raven's grasp, awakening and sucking in air all at once. Next to her, the sorceress trembled on the ground, clutching at her throat. Both girls wheezed and choked, rasping as though they hadn't breathed in years.

Finally, Terra recovered first. She clawed her way to her feet, staring in astonishment at Raven as her dark teammate coughed blood. "You…I was…You…You saved me," she said hoarsely. "I…thank you, Raven."

Inky sludge dribbled from Raven's lip as she forcibly expelled the last of her imagined injury. Her lungs still felt like sandpaper, and would for quite some time if they managed to survive. But more distressing than the pain was something else she had taken during their bond: a feeling of dread she couldn't quite place, and could not ignore. Raven stared up at Terra with a confused, uncertain, and distrustful expression. "Don't mention it," she wheezed.

"Terra has recovered," announced Starfire needlessly. Her hard glare never left their three circling foes. Her glowing hands never wavered. A starbolt leapt from her fingers, chasing Rayne back a few feet. "We should withdraw and regroup."

"Run, and we die," insisted Jason. The sword in his grasp swung back upright. He almost fell as a result, remaining righted thanks to Cyborg's quick hand. "I say, stay."

"We'll die that way, too!" said an exasperated Cyborg.

"Then we go down fighting."

"Everyone," barked Robin, "Shut up. We aren't running or dying." His voice became a prison yard whisper; "Terra, how do you feel?"

"Lousy."

He didn't stop to listen. "Fine. As soon as we move, get inside and help Beast Boy. The fourth one's in there." Turning his featureless gaze, he continued, "Cyborg, I don't have anything to take the smoke down. How about you?"

Cyborg eyed the sinister soot. "I think so," he muttered back. "But he'll need to be contained."

"That's you, Raven." Robin waited for the sorceress' nod, and next turned to Jason. "Anything cool in that jacket of yours?"

After a half-second to check, Jason nodded. He glanced up at Sparks' inferno, understanding at once. "Yeah. But I'll need a clear shot."

"You'll get it." He glanced over his shoulder at Starfire. "You and I will hit the liquid one with everything we've got."

Another starbolt leapt from her hands, this time passing through Zephyr. The superheating of his air forced him back, though not without a laugh. "Agreed," Starfire grunted.

Robin turned back and began studying the trio's dizzying pattern. Timing would be crucial. "Anyone not up is on defense. Ready?" He took a deep breath to knit his fraying nerves, and bellowed, "Titans, GO!"

Scarlet and emerald energy shot out from their formation, scattering their captors in three different directions. The ground sizzled at the energies' touch, throwing up ashen dust to further confuse and distract. Terra bolted through the chaos in a dead sprint that carried her through the open Tower doors before their enemies could collect themselves.

Zephyr wandered sightlessly through the acrid dust. He hadn't eyes to sting, but nevertheless floundered in the Titans' manufactured anarchy. Their agonized mewling no longer delighted his ears, giving him nothing to listen for. "Miserable children," he hissed, before a wall of obsidian pushed him back through the air. "What?"

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos." The corners of Raven's shield curled, cupping Zephyr's essence. She stood below him, hands raised in concentration. A smear of black lingered at the corner of her sneer. "Cyborg, now!" she shouted.

Cyborg trundled up behind her with his cannon aimed and readied. A mental command adjusted its aperture. His howl heralded a wide wave of unyielding blue that filled Raven's cupped soul-self with painful resonance. Hideous screaming erupted from inside the onslaught, but neither Titan yielded. Both of Zephyr's comrades charged in to rescue him, but a barrage of bolts (bird and star) kept them back.

After a long moment, the sonic blast ceased. Raven closed the edges of her trap, sealing its seams into a bubble. With a gesture, she slammed the bubble onto the ground again and again. Finally, the rage inside of it quelled into a quiet whimper. She cracked the black orb like an egg and let its yolk spill out. A bruised and naked man fell into a heap on the ground. He still breathed, but that was all.

"Little bitch!" howled Sparks. The air rippled around him, burning with an ozone smell. He eluded Robin's bird bolts and dove at the two Titans attacking his comrade. Jets of fire streamed from his hands, pouring over a hastily-erected soul barrier. "I'll kill you!"

Jason exchanged a quick glance with Starfire before he jumped at her. She caught his foot in midair and thrust him up with a shout. The Streetbeat tumbled through the air, out of control and out of his element, running on pure guts and fervent hope that someone with super powers would catch him. He spun above Sparks' descent, pulling out a set of blue-rimmed throwing discs from his jacket. "Chill, dude," he said, and hurled the discs.

Icy gas exploded around Sparks. The white chemicals popped and hissed against Sparks' waning flames, chilling the summer air in an instant. Sparks dropped down out of the agonizing gasses, only to run into another series of freezing explosions courtesy of Robin's utility belt. When he emerged from that second cloud, all that remained was a sooty humanoid figure that fell to Earth unguided. He bounced and stopped amidst the rocks. Smoke trailed off of his trembling body.

A black net spread from nothingness and cradled Jason's landing. Once his height became more survivable, Raven withdrew her soul-self, dumping him without ceremony. He had no time for complaint afterward; a liquid snake slithered across the ground at blinding speeds, weaving through sonic blasts to attack. Jason's sword swung in time to split a tentacle in twain before it holed his head. He missed the second, which wrapped around his waist and whipped him into Raven. The two fell into a tangle, helpless to defend themselves against Rayne's impending attack.

Rayne roared as starbolts peppered him from above, boiling his black surface. He tried lashing out at the floating Titan with drooping blades. Starfire just flew higher and threw harder. Rayne tried to run, but she followed. Her distant touch burned, scattering his thoughts of retaliation. Desperate, he tried to double back. Red, burning globes struck the ground in front of him. He juked left, straight into a brain-rattling sonic blast. He juked right, and ran into a mystical wall.

"Show's over," said Robin, stepping in front of the living liquid. His gloves glowed bright, reflecting off of Rayne's rippling surface. "Give up, and this gets easy."

"Foolish children," snarled Rayne. His body split in two different directions, shooting lethal spears out. One went wide, and didn't threaten anyone. The other shot past Cyborg's shoulder, coming just inches from taking his remaining ear.

Cyborg didn't flinch. "You missed," he grunted.

"No," drawled Raven, "He didn't." She saw his true target, and gritted her teeth for the oncoming encore.

Turning, the Titans watched Rayne reach out to his fallen comrades. Upon his touch, their bodies succumbed to his liquid flesh, vanishing beneath black bile. The tendrils drew back, engorged with their mass, and reached Rayne's central mass before the Titans could react. One howl became three as Rayne's body bent and stretched. Fires leapt from his skin, holding a darkened face in the flames. Wind whipped around the growing beast, buffeting the teens back. Within seconds, this new creature towered in the center of their circle, a trinity of elements that spewed smoke and fire from its molten black skin.

"Okay, then," groaned Cyborg.

* * *

"What's that?" Slate leaned over his broken prey with a sick smile and cupped a giant's hand to where his ears should have been. "You have to be a little louder." 

A mass of green, black, and blue trembled at Slate's feet, glaring up at the man-mountain through swollen eyes. His first attempt at speech ended in bloody mucus coughed up onto the floor. His body bulged into that of a bear that filled the basement with its roar, and clawed at Slate's chest. Slate laughed the claws off and backhanded Beast Bear into the wall. Steel yielded to the bear with a shriek, caving in and cradling Beast Boy as he reverted to his human form.

Slate chuckled. "That's what I thought you said."

Hooves pounded the concrete, propelling Beast Bull in a charge. His snorts ended in a bovine squeal beneath Slate's foot. The kick propelled him through the air, where he morphed again into a pterodactyl. His leathery wings spread to stop his fall and turn him back on his attacker with vicious talons.

The stony monster yawned and stood against the useless attacks. Whatever scratches Beast Boy put into his featureless skin healed instantly. He lifted a lazy arm to block lashing octopus tentacles, horse kicks, and gorilla fists. Each blow came from a different animal, and with less force than the last. "This is sad," lamented Slate.

A green hummingbird buzzed around Slate's face. His needle beak pecked at the leviathan's eyes, all without effect. Slate's eyes weathered the blows as well as the rest of him did. Slate drew in a mighty breath and gusted the Beast Bird away. The force of the gale bounced Beast Bird's tiny body off the gunmetal walls and onto the floor, where he became a raw, bloodied human again.

"See, here's the thing," said Slate. Beast Boy's uniform stretched as he plucked the Titan up by the collar between tremendous fingers. He held the boy up to his face, watching his lumpy green features pendulum. "You've got spirit, kid. Haven't stopped coming yet, I'll give you that."

Beast Boy's eyes snapped open and yellowed. Their pupils shrank and narrowed as his body elongated into that of a python. He twisted up Slate's arm and around his torso, constricting the golem's body with everything he had left. Hairline fractures wormed across Slate's skin, all to the tune of another yawn. The sharp crack of his body buckling under pressure didn't faze him in the least.

The opposite hand reached around and grasped Beast Snake's tail. One good tug violently uncoiled Beast Snake from Slate's torso. Slate swung the shapeshifter out and pulled, cracking him like a whip. Beast Snake's head slammed into the concrete. Chips of the floor flew away as his head bounced and landed in its own fitted crater. The rest of his body slithered to catch up, collapsing into his original, twiggy body.

"And that animal trick you've got going is pretty keen, too," Slate continued. Seeing the Titan face down in the concrete, Slate feared the fun had ended. Then he saw faint stirrings, and heard a moan, and he smiled. The ground quaked as he strolled toward Beast Boy. Everything trembled at his coming; that was the way it ought to be. "Bet you're a real kick at parties." His shadow fell over Beast Boy as the tiny Titan pulled himself to his hands and knees. "Party animal? Get it?"

A kangaroo morphed into being at his feet. It rolled over and lashed out with both feet, slamming into Slate's empty crotch. The golem staggered onto his tiptoes for a second. Then he lifted his foot and pressed it into the kangaroo's stomach.

Slate grinned, and grinded his foot into the green beast. "But this is the thing." He felt his foot drop as Beast Boy reverted. "You're all the animals, right? But in the end, what does that mean? You're weak, meaty, and ultimately crushable. Species are born, grow old, and die. But me?" Slate leaned in, feeling the satisfying snap of the shapeshifter's ribs beneath his sole. "I'm stone. Rock. Sand." A little more pressure turned Beast Boy's moans into tortured shouts. "I existed before everything else. I watch animals come, evolve, and fade into extinction." Bending over, he rumbled, "I'll be here long after you're gone, meat."

"Doubt that."

Slate looked up. A willowy blonde leaned heavily against the stairway's railing. Her uniform hung in tatters, barely up to the task of keeping her modesty intact. From the looks of things, one good gust of wind would topple her. But the failings of her body didn't diminish the intensity of her hatred, which burned from her face and into Slate's. "Looky what we have here," said Slate. "How ya been, Goldilocks?"

"Terra…" Beast Boy wheezed from underneath Slate's heel. His eyes traversed the entire room, finally finding their way to her. He reached out, scraping his glove across shattered concrete. The foot on his chest made his voice little more than a choked whisper. "Run. Please…run."

A gasp rattled into Beast Boy's chest when Slate stepped off of him, only to rush back out when the brute's fist clenched around him. Slate hefted his Titan toy and waggled it at Terra with a sneer. "Good advice. See, my plaything wore out, and I need a new one."

Terra lifted her goggles. The blue in her eyes flashed beneath flickering fluorescents that shook with the force of the battle outside. "Drop him," she grunted, "Or I make you." Her weight shifted to lean solely on one arm, freeing her other to rise against Slate's gradual approach.

"What, this?" The changeling shook like a wind sock in Slate's grasp. "And how are you gonna make me?"

Slate stomped, shaking the floor. The quake buckled Terra's legs, forcing her down onto one knee. Her breath rasped as she spoke: "Last chance," she warned him. Deep down, she hoped he didn't take it.

His laughter rattled Terra's chest. "I'd say 'no chance.' The power of the planet burns in every fiber of my being, you stupid little cow. Nothing can stand against me. I am the Earth."

Terra smirked through the burning pain in her chest. With extreme effort, she rose back to her feet. "Now," she asked him rhetorically, "Can you guess which word you probably should have left out?" She flicked her wrist.

Slate's shoulder exploded. Rocks scattered every which way as the golem's arm dropped to the floor. The dismembered limb shattered, spilling Beast Boy's limp body out. Slate roared and clutched his empty joint, staggered by the alien sensation of pain. His pieces broke down and flowed back into his feet, feeding the regrowth of his arm. "What the hell," he snarled.

"See, here's the thing," said Terra, fighting her way down the stairs on shaking legs. She staggered three steps forward for every step Slate took backward. A dark look polluted her face. "You're crystalline. Artificial. I've seen enough dirt to know the real deal from a fake like you. But you're close enough. Know what that means? This."

Another gesture tore Slate's legs free, toppling him. His sob filled the basement. He pulled himself together in time to face Terra, who towered above his prone posture. "You…"

Terra froze him with an amber scowl. "You're the Earth?" she hissed. "Too bad for you, 'cause the Earth listens to me. And you seriously piss me off."

The glow in her eyes intensified. Slate braced himself for another limb-shattering that never came. Instead, he gasped as impossible pressure began compacting his frame. Thousands of pounds pressed into every inch of his body. Even the mighty stone leviathan could not withstand such force, and withered beneath the onslaught. "No," screamed the shrinking giant, "No, please! You can't!"

"You should have thought of that," said Terra, "Before you messed with my shapeshifter."

Slate's shrinking pleas went unanswered. His body continued to compress in on itself, rumbling like gravel caught in a blender. The gray color of his skin darkened as he shrank. He became the size of a fridge, then a box, then a basketball, until finally, Terra could crush him no more. A perfect sphere of midnight rolled on the floor where Slate had stood.

Beast Boy lolled his head to one side, staring at the lifeless ball no bigger than his fist. When Terra moved to help him up, he didn't budge. Mild horror swam in his dizzy mind, washing up on the battered shoals of his perception. "Is he still alive?" he asked in a deathly whisper.

Groans rattled from both of them as Terra heaved him off of the floor. She cast a glare at the charcoal ball. "Don't know," she admitted. Beast Boy's arm fitted itself across her shoulder, burdening her with his weight. "Don't care," she added.

They began the arduous journey toward the door. Progress became sluggish once they hit the steep stairs. Beast Boy leaned into Terra and wrapped an arm around her waist. His head tilted to rest on her shoulder, and he said, "So, I'm _your_ changeling?"

Blood rushed briefly into Terra's face. "Heat of the moment, y'know? Didn't mean anything."

"You know what this means, don't you?" Reddened drool dripped from his grin and onto her shirt. "This means you're my knight in spandex armor. That makes me the damsel you just de-distressed."

"Shut up, Gar."

He chuckled. The act consumed his chest in coughing. "Don't feel bad. Chicks dig the green. You can't help it."

"You see what I did to him? You wanna be next?"

* * *

A ball of fear trembled on Ops' floor, curled and muttering. "Not gonna change. I'm not gonna change." 

Explosions and screams rang outside. Each noise tightened the coil of her body and made rise a whimper from the back of her throat. Dust shook free from the ceiling, raining down as the entire Tower shook with the force of the battle outside.

"Not gonna change," she moaned. "Not gonna change."

A dull wall quarantined her inner demon. The alley girl couldn't be certain, but she thought the chemicals were working; it yowled with each rumble echoing from the battlefield, and dug away at the tranquilized safeties keeping it in check to no effect. That came as small comfort, for it left her to focus wholly on her terror.

"It doesn't make sense," whispered the alley girl. Gouts of flame roared past the bay windows, chasing a bird-shaped shadow into the sky. "People are born," she said to herself, "They live, and they die. They grow, and they remember…why don't I?"

Her ramblings dissolved into a scream when Cyborg flew through the window. Glass cascaded around his molten metal body, peppering Ops in a razor hail. The alley girl shrieked as he tumbled over her head and tore through the couch. Wood and ceramics gave way beneath him, spelling an end to the kitchen counter and to Cyborg's flight. When he picked himself up, his armor and implants glowed red with intense heat. Dark, scorched footprints sizzled into the carpet as he barreled through the empty window and leapt back into the fray, disappearing from sight with a battle howl. He never even noticed her.

"Doesn't make sense…" The alley girl lifted her head to the gusting window. Shards of glass fell from her borrowed clothes. The whine of a sonic cannon preceded a monstrous roar and another gush of flame, and then the explosions and shouts of the battled continued as before. She felt the pull of the battle's call, but her fear kept her away from the window's edge. "They're fighting…for me."

The only people she knew were out there, fighting for her. Her only memories battled to save someone that they didn't know any better than she knew them…less so! Is that life? Fighting without cause? They didn't know her. _She_ didn't know herself beyond the handful of days that comprised her life. Those had been little more than violence interspaced with blackouts. How could that be worth saving?

A yell snapped her eyes up in time to see a streak of gold fly into the clutches of an oily tendril snaking from below. Starfire struggled against the immense creature to no effect. Her alien might could not even stretch the flaming tar. She screamed again when cutting winds leapt from the tentacle, slicing into her. Wisps of smoke trailed from Starfire's skin where the black bile grasped her. Sonic blasts, bird bolts, and black kinetic bursts slammed into the tentacle, all useless.

"Starfire…"

_Starfire leaned over to comfort her. The alley girl had never before felt so safe as she did in the golden Titan's presence. "You will not be harmed. I swear it."_

_"There is no way I can take her back with me," insisted Jason. His face became unbearably angry." "She's a liability, she's dangerous."_

_"Let's look at the facts," said Robin. His voice, calm and even as it was, thundered in the alley girl's ears. "We've got a girl with no memory who knows all of us, our identities, our powers, and probably our weaknesses; she's already demonstrated incredible power, and she's admitted to being unable to control it. We need to face facts." With a fearsome look, he decreed, "We might be looking at containment, not rescue."_

_Starfire smiled her warmest smile, the kind capable of banishing all the cold out of one's body, until all that remained was good, and peace. "Just be my friend as well," she said._

The alley girl felt the beast inside her thrashing. Only her will, and the drugs in her body, kept it contained. As she returned to her feet, shedding her coat of broken glass, she wondered what would happen if she released it.

* * *

"Starfire!" Robin hurled a volley of bolts into the black mass. The scarlet energies sunk into its surface, feeding the flames that leapt out at him and the other Titans. He back-flipped away as the Trinemental swung his Tamaranian bludgeon. Starfire's ginger hair whipped in his face as she flew past, wailing. Robin was lucky; helpless, Starfire careened into Jason, knocking him flat before she was whipped into the air to chase Raven back. 

Stun missiles leapt out of Cyborg's shoulders, spreading blue sonics across the creature's flaming skin. Cyborg's armor had lost its red glow, but its edges looked less crisp. "This is looking bad, man." His sonic cannon tickled the Trinemental.

Robin switched tactics, tossing every freeze disc he had left. They just sunk in, making a _poot_ noise from deep within the bile's bowels. The beast's trio of faces soured, swelled, and belched forth an icy cloud that washed over Raven's shield. Her soul-self whitened with frost, and she clutched her arms to her body and fell, coughing.

The Trinemental chortled in deep and resonating bass while the battered Titans gathered around Raven, helping the whitened sorceress to her feet. Starfire soared in his clutches, raised so that they could not miss seeing her agony as renewed flames gathered along its tentacle and consumed her outline. Vertebrae began to bend and creak beneath its terrible strength. Starfire's screams came to a crescendo, music to the Trinemental's invisible ears.

"Stop!" The shout rang out from above the battlefield, ceasing the Trinemental's brutal game. Its three fiery faces swung skyward, and smiled, as they spotted the alley girl toeing the broken window's edge in Ops. She touched the jagged glass' edge to steady herself, leaning over. "Stop hurting them," she called. "I'm right here."

The Trinemental tossed Starfire aside, where Robin's arms waited after a frantic burst of speed to catch her. Its body elongated, rising to challenge the Tower's height. A trio of visages stared into the alley girl's face from flickering flames. Their mouths moved as one, releasing a reverberating rumble of, "**Yooooouuuuuu…**"

Her muscles clenched to control her fearful tremble. "That's right," she shouted. "It's me. Stop attacking these people. I'm the one you want."

"**Return…tech…**"

The alley girl's face twisted. Down below, she saw the rest of the Titans beginning to pull themselves back together, barely moving. The beast inside of her pulled ferociously at its tranquilizer leash, demanding to be set free into the Trinemental's ugly faces. "That stuff inside of me? I don't want it."

"**Slayer…"** Tendrils whipped up from its central mass.

"But I'm pretty sure you shouldn't have it, either."

The alley girl pushed off from the edge, falling out into the air. A roar of surprise arose from the Trinemental as everything around her slowed down to a crawl. She could hear the Titans shouting down below. The heat from the dark beast scorched the hair from her arms as she rushed past its long neck, speeding toward its centralized body.

She shut her eyes and chased the outside world away: No noise, no sight, leaving her alone with the beast. Its claws dug at her soul, all while trapped in the drug haze forced upon her. 'Listen,' she pleaded, 'We can't run, and we can't hide anymore.'

The beast yowled.

'Listen!' Her cries became more forceful inside her own head. 'I need you, but I won't let you go on like you were. I won't become what you want me to.'

The beast yowled.

Something inside of her snapped. Not the beast, nor her fear, but something else; an untapped well of anger flowed into her veins. She had been given only three days to live, and had spent them all in terror. She had been hunted by monsters, and not even granted the memory to know why. She possessed immense power, and yet fell to the nonexistent mercies of the beast. No more.

'No,' she yowled back. 'You listen to me.'

The beast roared.

'This is my body. You listen to ME!'

Sapphire illumination burst from the alley girl's back, tearing asunder her tank top bearing the Titan's sigil. Tendrils of metal sprang from the well of light and wrapped around her body, sticking to her like a second skin. The pale tones of her body vanished, replaced by pristine whites trimmed with orange and yellow hazard patterns.

The alley girl plunged, aglow, into the Trinemental. A being of metal carved into organic lines exploded from the other side, landing hard. Earth cratered beneath its feet. Thunder clapped, and the Trinemental roared, as flaming pieces of its body sprayed everywhere.

Starfire stared at the armored girl's transformation with a pang of regretful fear. She clutched Robin's helping hand, drawing near to him by instinct. "No," she whispered.

Having never seen it himself, Robin found himself at a loss for words. He heard Cyborg approach from behind. Raven and Jason each leaned on his arms, supported by a man who should have been unable to walk on his own by all rights. "It's…some kind of tech," said Cyborg. He staggered to a stop at Robin's side, grimacing. "Like a suit."

"What should we do, Robin," asked Raven. The forced indifference had drained from her voice, leaving exhausted concern.

Robin caught sight of the flashing fear in Starfire's eyes. He could feel her tugging on his supportive grasp. She would charge into battle now, if he let her go. But something in his gut held her hand fast. "These…This thing," he amended, "Wants her bad. Let's give her a chance to show us why."

The Trinemental loomed over its armored quarry. The two monsters faced each other, neither backing down. "**Give…up…"** Tentacles of fire jetted out, snaring the armor's wrists and ankles and dragging it into the air.

Tiny groans erupted from a grill set below the armor's visor as the girl struggled against her captor. Then, with a terrific cry, the armored girl thrust her limbs and wrenched free, breaking the Trinemental's tentacles and falling. Powerful wind tore at her from the creature's body, blowing her onto her back. Her landing dug a furrow into the earth. Before she even stopped, she had flipped over to face the Trinemental.

Tentacles resurged from its center, worming up and around to attack her from all sides. "**You…are ours…**" its reverberating voices trilled.

A new sensation tugged at the armored girl's arms. Unlike the monster's yowls, this feeling lacked dominion over her body: instinct. It lifted her hands and compacted them into fists, which she pointed at the tendril wave. Thick armor on her forearms blossomed open, revealing twin barrels in each that extended with a distinctly mechanical whirr.

Three faces of flame widened in horror, cast in the white sparking light from her new weapons in a moment of slowed epiphany. Then, twin streams of staccato force leapt from her arms, composed of dozens, hundreds, thousands, of tiny beacons of death. Like a machine gun, the weapons tore into the Trinemental's side, only to come out the other, still burning bright. It looked at first as though the Trinemental moved around the deadly white fire. When blackened steam streamed from its inferno, the Titans realized that the armored girl's weapons were evaporating it.

"**No!**" Renewed winds blasted from the Trinemental. The ground beneath the armored girl's feet tore away, but she stood her ground, and continued to fire. More and more of the Trinemental vanished beneath her weapons' might. "**You cannot!**"

Her burst fire did not waver. She said nothing to answer its mortal shrieks. As the Trinemental shrunk, lost to the air, the armored girl strode forward, lowering her aim to keep the burst stream leveled through the Trinemental. Wind dwindled, fire sputtered, and liquid smoked, reflected in the scowling visor of her face. Within seconds, the Trinemental dwindled into nothing. Then the armored girl turned her attention to the Titans. Her deadly weapons smoked and glowed.

The rest of the teens spread at a gesture from Robin. "Everyone, ready," he barked. Bird bolts grew in Robin's weary hands. The armored girl took tentative steps toward them, leveling her unmoving scowl at him. Glancing either way, he saw his friends, similarly sapped of fight. "She's gone berserker. Fan out and—"

"Wait!" A panicked, tinny voice leapt from the grill of the armored girl's helmet. Her gorilla-sized fists unclenched. The barrels on her forearms retracted and disappeared behind orange panels. "Wait, don't shoot! It's me, I…I think."

One by one, the Titans lowered or dissipated their attacks. Robin was last, keeping his powers tensed and ready. The armored girl remained where she was with arms raised in surrender. Her disconcerting scowl locked with his furrowed brows before he switched them to Raven. "Raven, is she…?"

Her twilight eyes bore down on the girl. "Fear. Confusion. Anxiety." Raven muttered just loud enough for her team to hear. "But no aggression."

"Okay." The last of Robin's bird bolt wisped away, but his hands remained raised. He stepped forward. "Easy, okay?" His voice stayed low and even. "Just take the …armor? Take it off."

"I…can't." The armored girl clanked as she rubbed her smooth, metallic arm. Her angular, grilled, scowling face lowered in some semblance of embarrassment, reflected in her tinny voice. At first, Robin feared a resurgence of her berserker nature. But as he and the others came closer, they saw shreds of cloth poking from the armor's joints. Their scowls faded into muted laughter when she said, "This stuff ate my clothes. I…I think I'm naked under here."

* * *

The Tower bedroom that the alley girl had awoken in now served as her waiting room. Clad in a fresh Titan-monogrammed sweat suit and seated on the bed, she counted the seconds ticking by, and wrung her hands in her lap, and bit her bottom lip, and did everything she could to take her mind off of the council down the hall deciding her fate. Nothing did the trick. 

In the hours following their battle, the Titans had eased her into new clothes, and shot a new mixture into her veins that took the claws from her beast and left a cottony haze over her thoughts. There had been smiles from some, congratulations from others, and even a, 'You go, Robot Lass!' from Beast Boy whilst an annoyed Raven taped his ribs. But the alley girl hadn't missed the surreptitious glances her way. Harder to overlook (impossible, actually) was the naked, mistrustful stare from Cyborg.

"Hey." Terra's voice intoned at her side. The geokinetic laid a hand upon the alley girl's, and offered her a tiny smile. It reflected poorly in the alley girl's face. "It'll be okay."

"I just…" The alley girl searched her new feelings for the right way to put it. Her lips felt too large for her mouth, thanks to the tranquilizers. "I feel tired," she said. "I don't want to run anymore."

Jason grunted. He stood in the corner, pretending to lean coolly against the wall so the girls wouldn't notice that he had trouble staying on his feet. "Rough life," he muttered. He picked at his nails.

The look Terra gave him could have curdled milk. "Too bad somebody doesn't help kids without homes, huh?" she sniped.

A defense mounted on Jason's lips, but the alley girl's quiet tone ended it in its infancy. "He's right, you know. If it weren't for those drugs…"

"You aren't going out there again," Terra said firmly. "Not alone. I've already made my vote. If I have to, I'll move the earth to make everyone else see it that way, too." That last comment came with a wink. The alley girl tried to smile again, and again, she came up short. Her vain attempt vanished altogether as the double doors rushed open, admitting a somber parade.

The Titans formed a line in front of the alley girl, who got to her feet. Cyborg interrupted his scowl long enough to give Terra an expectant look. She just shook her head and remained at the girl's side, resolute. The other Titans held silent as Robin spoke.

"Miss, we've been talking it over," he began unnecessarily. The alley girl wished she could see his eyes. She would trade every unnatural memory of the Boy Wonder and his true identity for just one peek under his disquieting mask. The rest of his face offered her nothing. "This is serious business. I want to make sure you understand the depth of the situation before we—"

"I understand just fine," the alley girl said quietly. She looked away, unable to meet the eyes of her jury. "I appreciate everything you've done for me, but I get it, okay?" Rubbing her arm, she began walking for the door, circumnavigating the Titanic five standing in her path. "I'll just go."

"If you did," intoned Starfire, floating to block her exit, "I believe you would be passing up a marvelous opportunity."

The alley girl looked up sharply, doing a double-take in time with Jason's. Her jaw slackened as Robin continued, "You really impressed us out there today. What you did took real courage."

"But your powers are still untested," Raven chimed in.

Starfire reached out and lifted the alley girl's chin, offering her a bright, sunshiny smile that warmed the cool chill out of the girl's features. "This is why we would like you to stay here, with us!"

"If you'll accept," said Robin, striding forward, "We'd like to offer you a place here, as an honorary Titan." He pulled a communicator from his belt and offered it with an upturned hand. The yellow bauble hovered beneath her nose, tantalizing her widened eyes. "Our home is the safest place any of us could think of for you. We'd like it to be your home, too."

"Plus," said Beast Boy, throwing a few practice jabs, "You can totally train with that techno-stuff that comes out of you."

Cyborg didn't hesitate to add, "And maybe find out what it is."

"Or who you are," added Raven.

Floored, the alley girl reached up with a shaking hand. Her fingers grazed the smooth casing of the communicator, but could not commit to wrapping around it. Robin took her hand and pressed the device gently into her grasp. "Welcome to the team," he said with a wooden smile.

Terra's glove engulfed the speechless girl's shoulder as she wrapped an arm around her. "Just one thing," she quipped. "We can't keep calling you, 'Hey You,' now can we? You're gonna need a name."

"Way ahead of ya, Blue Eyes," said Beast Boy. He dug through his pockets, tossing aside gum wrappers and lint until he reached the desired item with a triumphant gasp. A thin, rectangular plate emerged from his pants between gloved fingertips, and flashed as he brought it up for the alley girl to see. "See, most people in the biz don't get to choose their own name, which is why we went and chose one for you…Tech!"

The room stared at Beast Boy's revelation in silence, unsure as to how to broach the subject to him. Raven spoke first, devoid of any hampering diplomacy or tact. "Beast Boy, 'Tech' is spelled with a C-H, not a K."

Beast Boy looked down at his trio of letters: T-E-K. He considered the misspelling for a moment, and then shrugged her irritated glance off. "I think it's cooler this way, anyhow." The statement clenched Raven's eyes shut in a renewed migraine, but drew the desired titter from Terra. "C'mon, let's go put this on your door."

"How about later?" Terra gave the alley girl's shoulder a squeeze before dropping her arm away. She sidestepped Raven and grasped Beast Boy's arm, leading him toward the door. "Why don't we head for Ops, and you can start thanking me properly for saving your butt." At his shocked and dawning joy, she added quickly, "I mean, by making me something to eat."

Cyborg was hot on their heels. "I think some celebratory waffles are definitely in order," he said. His voice lacked his usual enthusiasm at the prospect of breakfast for dinner.

"Wait a minute." Jason limped after them. "You people just had a life-or-death battle outside of your house. The place is a mess. Half of us should be bed-ridden. And you want waffles?"

"'S'not a problem in a world that waffles can't make better," Beast Boy noted sagely.

A brief struggle ended on Jason's features. "Yeah, okay," he grunted. "Count me in."

"Glorious!" Starfire started after her friends, when she noticed the alley girl lingering behind, and staring at her new communicator. Concerned, the alien doubled back, approaching slowly. "Tek? Tek, are you not well?"

It took the alley girl a moment to realize who Starfire was talking to. "Huh? Oh. No, I'm okay. I just…I'm okay," she said. "Gimmie a minute. I'm…right behind you."

With one last, worried glance, Starfire floated out. The alley girl didn't even hear the doors (her doors?) close. She just stared into the yellow Titan sigil sitting in her palm, at the mercy of a thousand unfamiliar thoughts and feelings. "I'm a Titan," she said. "I have a name. Is that…good?"

Out in the hall, Starfire caught the tail end of an argument flying between Cyborg and Robin, who had stayed behind as the others left for Ops, and the promise of food. "—is totally ridiculous," Cyborg threw violently into Robin's scowl. "You're putting the whole team at risk."

"The team took a vote, Cyborg," Robin shot back. "I'm not running a dictatorship here, and neither are you. We decided as a team to keep her on, and that decision is final."

"She's dangerous," said Cyborg. "She's a wild card, a liability. And I think we have a few too many of those around these days," he added spitefully. The caustic glint in his organic eye curled Robin's lips.

"If you have something to say to me," growled Robin, "Then just say it." He heard Cyborg suck the breath in, but all that came out was a brief snort and a dirty look. "I understand what you're saying, Vic. Don't think I haven't considered all of this." Lowering his tone, Robin continued, "But she knows too much about us and our operation to be an accident."

Cyborg gave him a funny look. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

Robin seemed uncertain. "Suspicions. Hunches. I don't want to say anything until I've got something hard to go on. But in the meantime," he told his teammate, "I think it's safer for everyone concerned if we keep a close eye on her. That'll be easier to do with her in-house."

Starfire had heard enough. She 'harrumphed,' making her presence known. Cyborg took one look at her, and the dark anger sparking in her eyes, and retreated without another word. That left only her and Robin in the hallway to shiver in the cold silence between them. Neither one broke their gaze, but nor did they offer any words.

Finally, Starfire tired of the game. She turned her nose up at Robin and stalked past him, ignoring his hurt look. But she stopped as he said, "Kory, we have to talk about it sometime. I think I at least deserve an explanation."

Without looking back, Starfire said, "Tell me, Robin; if Tek had not wished to stay, would you have made her?" No reply came. It was all the answer Starfire needed, and exactly what she had expected. That was enough to break her heart anew. Wordlessly, she resumed her march down the hall.

Robin watched her go, tempted to chase her. He knew it wouldn't do any good. Rage began bubbling from the open wound that his thoughts of her kept cutting open inside of him. Scowling, he turned in the opposite direction, intent on putting as much distance between himself and _her_ as he could. A telltale rattle came from his belt. In his fury, he ripped the utility compartment open and tore at the offensive noise. Doctor Brown's bottle of pills trembled in his enraged grasp. The tiny white dots danced inside.

END: TEK

NEXT: FEARSOME FIVE

* * *

_Author's Afterward_

Tek has been with me a long time.

She started as a character for the roleplaying game Big Eyes, Small Mouth (a system rife with opportunity for twinking, for those of you who throw dice). I can't reveal much about her character yet, as there'll be more of her to come. But I thought she would make a good addition to the team. Starfire has been the "outsider" in that she doesn't understand Earth culture very well, but that's not a direction I see her continuing in indefinitely, as it has in the show. In this strange amalgamation of comic book and cartoon continuity, I find myself leaning more and more toward Starfire's current comic characterization; a battle-hardened, very powerful ex-princess who doesn't take guff, and dishes out plenty of action. But the concept of an outsider remains appealing, especially for a story about metahumans growing up and finding their place in the world.

Hence, Tek. I admit, it's a pretty goofy name. But it seems to fit, at least for now. Once again, I can't reveal a whole lot about her. There'll be more to come about Tek (but not _just_ Tek. This isn't a Mary Sue story, after all, and there are six other Titans on the team) in future story arcs.

Well, we're through the old material. Now, on to the new! And, don't I always say it...?

The best is yet to come.

Cyberwraith Nine  
Ghost of the Net


	24. Fearsome Five: Drive

_All-Purpose Disclaimer_

**Teen Titans** is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Cartoon Network Inc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit and purely for entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, not to be reproduced without prior consent. Additional information used in creating **Teen Titans: Avatar** courtesy of Titans Tower Online.

* * *

A white circle battled oppressive gloom, cast from the lair's ceiling onto its only real feature: a throne of steel and leather surrounded by monitors and command panels, raised from the concrete on a platform that teased the light's edge. Hanging chains littered the gloom outside of the platform, a thicket of metal that obscured a maze of gears and cogs, a lonely kingdom of ominous black. It was a fit kingdom for its king, and he lorded over it from his throne with two-toned terror.

Five subjects encircled their new king at the light's edge. They stood motionless in silent reverence. When he spoke their name one by one, they stepped into the circle.

"Mammoth."

A mountain of muscle and sinew; cold, cruel eyes; hair like unthreshed copper; towering menace in armor.

"Shimmer."

Pure sex in black leather; a smile bereft of joy or humor; pale, smooth skin broken with tattoos; a bemused glance shared with Mammoth.

"Gizmo."

An ocean of hatred held within a thimble of a boy; gleaming technology the envy of intellects everywhere; mischief tempered by genius; glinting eyes long since replaced by glassy lenses.

"Psimon."

A beady gaze set into a gaunt face; tall, spindly, framed by a long leather duster; throbbing pink brain flesh trapped within a crystal skull.

"Jinx."

Thin, graceful lines carried with certainty; tufts of bubble gum hair; an aura of magic that promised pain; a desperate, palpable need for revenge.

The two-toned king spoke in a purring tone three octaves below danger. "You each have been selected carefully for this mission. You have each been briefed by myself and my apprentice. Do you understand your mission?"

"Yes," said the five.

"Do you understand the price of failure?" His voice chilled the cold room and all in it.

"Yes," they said again.

"Good." He reached over and tapped a panel. Screens the size of vast fields came to light behind him, burning images of their mission into the air. "You will act quickly and on my signal only. You will not deviate, or the consequences will be the same as those for failure."

The five figures stared up at the screens. Six faces stared back, frozen images that stirred fires of hatred in the king's knights. One in particular felt her insides bubble and boil as a festering wound in her pride opened again. Violet hex shimmered around her ghostly fists as she said, "We won't fail. Nothing can stop us."

His eye narrowed. "Take care, child. There are obstacles yet to overcome. Powerful obstacles." He gestured to the six on the screens behind him. "Underestimate them, and you will fail. Understood?"

Jinx offered a hollow 'yes.' Beneath the unwitting gazes of the six images, she let her anger simmer deep in the pit of her stomach. They would pay for belittling her. They would pay for the humiliation she had suffered at their hands, no matter how good they were.

* * *

Beast Boy screamed and beat the flaming couch with his tennis racket. The fire scoffed at his efforts, and consumed more of the black upholstery. Desperate and shrieking, he pounded the flames even harder. Smoke wrapped around his head, inciting tears and coughs between his screams. The strings of his racket melted and fell away, lost to the spreading flames.

The fire retaliated against his attack by leaping onto his white tennis togs and forest green headband. Beast Boy backpedaled from the couch and dropped his racket. His screaming doubled in volume and pitch, taking the shape of the world 'help' as he slapped the flame eating at his clothes. "I'm on fire!" he shrieked. "I'm totally on fire!"

Raven barreled from the kitchen. A black bucket of soul self floated behind her, slopping over with water taken from the tap. She threw the soul-bucket with a gesture, sending a geyser of water through Beast Boy and onto the couch. Both extinguished into soggy, smoldering heaps.

He picked himself up and shook water from his body as a dog would. "Oh, man," he groaned, examining the scorch marks on his short-shorts and polo shirt. "That was close. I almost became barbecue! Thanks, Raven."

Her soul-bucket dissolved in a puff of irritation. His gratitude rolled off of her scowl like the water off his smile as she asked, "Do I even want to know what you were thinking?"

Beast Boy shrugged, unaffected by her annoyance. The lingering embers clinging to his tatters didn't affect him in the slightest, though Raven could still smell the stink of smoldering polyester. "Hey, c'mon. How else was I going to find out that 'Extreme Tennis' was a bad idea unless I tried it?" Leaning across the charcoal spot on the couch, he dug through its cushions. To hear him hum, one would never guess he had been aflame only seconds ago. When he returned from his couch spelunk, he held in his palm a sodden briquette, which was all that remained of his tennis ball. "Heh. Check it out."

Raven's lip curled. Beast Boy always smelled like wet dog to her, but now he reeked of burnt, _really_ wet dog. Their couch had a hole scorched into it, and water pooled over half their living room floor, a mess Beast Boy would undoubtedly leave without a second thought. The only way she could think of to make the situation worse would be if—

A shrill beeping stormed the room as smoke curled its way to the ceiling. Sprinkler heads descended and showered an artificial downpour. Everything in Ops became slick and soaked with freezing water, including the two teens. Already wet, Beast Boy just looked up into the sprinklers with chagrin. "Oops."

The water slurped into Raven's cloak with gusto, weighing heavily upon the hem of her hood. It sunk over her face and obscured her eyes, leaving only her down turned mouth in sight. "You know," she said blindly, "I really can't stand you."

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Fearsome Five**: _Drive_

_"Okay. Start it up."_

Tek trembled in the middle of the cavernous Training Room, surrounded by weight machines and other super-heroish equipment, and laden with tremendous doubt. She gazed up at the mountainous wall to a partitioned booth of glass, a new addition of Cyborg's to the room. It was his voice echoing over the loudspeaker now. Part of her would have felt better if she could see him. Then she remembered the scowl that infected his brow whenever she entered a room, and she thought better.

Her lips parted for an unsteady breath before she answered, "O-okay." She ran a hand across her scalp, spilling a fortnight's worth of dark fuzz between her fingers. A prayer ghosted across her lips, pleading with unseen angels to let her maintain control under the Titans' critical eyes, if only for a moment. The crook of her arm ached with the memory of a needle prick, easing some of her anxiety; at least she wouldn't lose control.

You can do this.

Her open-backed, aquamarine second skin stretched as Tek drew herself upright with another breath. Then, the air behind her shimmered and split into a disc of shimmering blue. Tendrils of metal snaked up and around the disc. They consumed the crackling singularity whole and set to work on Tek's body, encasing her within smooth, organic lines of metal. The armor settled into its sleek shape, saving her head for last; Tek shivered as the warm armor's touch flowed up her face and formed her helmet, complete with a dark scowl for a visor.

Now clad in the armor the Titans had named her for, Tek shifted uncomfortably on the balls of her feet. She looked up at the control booth. "O-okay," she called again. The metal grill over her mouth made her voice into a tinny parody of itself. "What do you want me to do now?"

_"You'll know what to do,"_ Cyborg told her.

"What does that mean?" asked Tek. Then a razor-edged circular blade tore the air just millimeters in front of her plated nose. She staggered back and screamed, even as more blades loaded themselves into cylindrical launchers that sprouted around her from the floor like deadly daisies.

_"The next one won't miss on purpose,"_ Cyborg's voice promised her from on-high.

* * *

Cyborg released the microphone on the control board and leaned back, watching Tek shriek and dance through the tinted glass. Those razor discs she scrambled to avoid moved like molasses to Cyborg, and probably wouldn't have scuffed his Molybdenum steel. He doubted she would even feel one if it hit her dead on. But there she was, crawling around on all fours, hiding behind the rest of the equipment in the Training Room.

"So is this what you expected?" he asked at once, sensing a presence in the room. A glance back confirmed his suspicions and worsened his scowl. "After all, you wanted her here."

Robin stood in the back of the booth, half-merged with its shadows, glaring out the glass. "We voted," he replied reflexively. "And yes, I did expect this." Tek's screams ran through his impassive ears between the sounds of the discs carving their Training Room apart. "It seems like her tranquilizers are working."

"Seems like," agreed Cyborg.

"Take it to Level Two."

He swiveled in his chair and gaped. "You're kidding. She's about to wet that fancy suit of hers, and—"

"Take it," Robin repeated in a growl, "To Level Two."

Cyborg matched Robin's glare for a moment, searching the Teen Wonder's shrouded face. He didn't like what he found in it. But he didn't argue further, and turned back to the control board. "Okay, Tek," he said into the mic, "We're taking it up a notch. Get ready."

"Are you kidding me?" Tek's voice filtered through the board above the noise of keys clacking beneath Cyborg's fingers. "I'm going to die! Don't you get that?" Cyborg's answer came in the form of a laser hail from the ceiling that supplemented the discs. Tek's screams renewed as she dove beneath Cyborg's weight sets and trembled.

The control booth doors cracked open, admitting Terra amidst a brief stream of light. Her slender outline held the golden glow a moment after the doors plunged the room back into darkness. "Hey guys. I just came to see how she's...doing." Terra stopped short at the sight of their new friend cowering in fear far below. "What the hell is going on?" she demanded.

"A waste of time," muttered Cyborg.

Robin didn't flinch when Terra's anger turned toward him. "I'm testing her. We need to find out how much the tranquilizers are reigning in her berserker aspect."

"You're testing her?" Terra repeated. "You've kept her locked up in this tower for two weeks. You've been doing nothing but testing her. What more do you need to know?"

"We have to be ready for anything," Robin countered without looking. "Do you think the people who built her are just going to forget about her?" Resolve twisted his mask. "We can't afford to have loose cannons in-house. We have to be able to control her."

The leather of Terra's gloves creaked as she curled them into fists. "I guess we can't let just any super yahoo run around," she said with quiet fury. "Not if they have powers that you don't think they can handle."

She stalked out of the room without another word. The pneumatic push of the door served in place of a slam. Arctic chill hovered in her wake, so cold that it sent a shiver through Cyborg's temperature-regulated body. "I think you hit a nerve, dude," he said.

He may as well have been talking about the weather; Robin didn't bat a mask lens. "She'll get over it," he said. "She needs to grow up and learn to deal with her anger."

"That a fact?" Cyborg hid his smirk behind a fist, pretending to cough. "So, how are you and Starfire doing?"

He could hear Robin's jaw clenching above the muffled battle in the Training Room. "What do we know about Tek's armor?" the Teen Wonder asked frostily.

Satisfied with his victory, Cyborg turned back to his panel and the battle below. Tek's cowering had become frenzied tumbling to avoid the laser fire of Level Two. Her tinny shrieks grew louder with every near miss. "Not much. Whoever put her in that soup can knew what they were doing, and then some. Metallurgical analysis came back unknown: it's an alloy I've never seen before. And before you ask, those blasters she was using are plasma-based, and don't ask me anything else."

"Like nothing you've ever seen?" Robin said with a cocked brow.

Cyborg nodded. "Bullseye."

"So where does the armor go when..." At Cyborg's sardonic back glance, Robin mashed his lips into a line. "Let me guess: Don't ask you."

He nodded again. "The best guess I could offer you is that it's some sort of isolated time-space anomaly kept stable by whatever's powering the suit." A groan rumbled in Cyborg's throat as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. The screaming continued far below. "Pocket dimensions and plasma weaponry scaled down that small are stuff S.T.A.R. Labs can only dream about right now.

Robin's scowl nearly obscured his eyes. "Then the question you really don't want me to ask is where she came from."

They watched Tek shield herself with a weight lifting bench. Her armor sparked with shrapnel and ricochets as the bench crumbled in her gorilla-sized mitts. Not a scratch remained on her as she ran from the renewed hail of lasers and enormous razor discs. "At least we know why they made her," said Cyborg. "My scans even revealed hard-point energy shunts built throughout the armor's superstructure." At Robin's silent question, he clarified, "Plug-ins for armor upgrades and add-ons."

"That's the last thing she needs." Robin swept his cape around his shoulders and stalked toward the exit. "Keep the simulation going until she wears herself out," he called back. "We have to be sure that those tranquilizers can keep her berserker personality suppressed."

"If it is a personality," Cyborg shot back. "It could be the suit."

His point bounced off of Robin's back without reply. The doors brushed aside, revealing the corridor beyond, where Raven passed with book in hand. Robin ignored her as well, barging through without a sound or glance. She had to sidestep or risk a chinful of Robin's shoulder.

Raven gave the Teen Wonder a curious glance as he disappeared around the corner. Her presence before the Control Room door kept it open, drawing her eyes in to meet Cyborg's scowl. She gravitated in, drawing her midnight mantle back around her. "Have you noticed anything strange about Robin lately?" Raven asked Cyborg. She stepped to the side of his chair, remaining a comfortable distance away. Her lavender eyes shimmered in the light of the control panel as they drifted to the Training Room through the glass.

Raven seeking a conversation was an event on par with Haley's Comet. Still, Cyborg felt snarky after Robin's departure, and could not fight his sarcasm; "Do you mean the attitude problem, the alien living in his chest, or the closet full of colorful capes and tights?"

Raven didn't bat an eye. "The attitude."

"He's Robin."

Her brows knit, forming a single line of disagreement. "Lately he seems...more so."

Cyborg grunted and said nothing. For what seemed like ages, he had sat on his suspicions about their Teen Wonder. During their last encounter with Slade, the madman's lackey de jour had implied the existence of another Apprentice. In Cyborg's eyes, Robin had the history and the opportunity to be their in-house spy, even if it wasn't a willing participation as with before. Cyborg remained silent for lack of evidence, and hated every minute of it.

His silence didn't seem to bother Raven. She continued watching Tek's training match below. The armored girl had run out of steam, and huddled in a fetal ball against the hail of training weapons. Lasers bounced off of her armor. Razor discs shattered. The girl's quaking hardly quirked Raven's face. "And she's in there because...?" she asked dully.

Cyborg's hovering hand came down hard on the 'TERMINATE' button. The automated attacks stopped at once, but it was several moments more before Tek unfurled and stood. The tenured Titans watched her stumble for a handhold in the room, shucking her armor in a flash of blue-white light. Her face glistened with squashed tears.

"Because Robin's being Robin," he said.

* * *

Robin glided down the hall at that moment, being very much the brooding shadow his teammates had come to know. Batman had drilled too much grace and balance into him to let him stomp through the Tower, regardless of his anger. It was one of the few aspects of his training he regretted; a good stomp would do wonders for his mood.

That Cyborg disapproved of his treatment of their super-powered runaway didn't bother Robin in the slightest. He was used to making unpopular decisions. But the realization of his own callousness toward Tek, seen through Cyborg's eyes, still didn't bother him, and _that_ bothered him.

A surge of anger trickled down his neck, unbidden, unwarranted. He felt it echo in his chest where his symbiotic companion nested in his ribs. His anger grew, and he glided faster.

Where did Cyborg get off questioning him, anyway? Cyborg wasn't responsible for their safety if Tek went berserk and decided to bring the Tower down around their ears. He was. Besides which, Tek wasn't really part of the team; she was there by necessity, and had to be contained. Controlled

_How could any of them question you?_

Everything always came down to him. Everyone always looked to him to solve their problems like a bunch of helpless children. But when they didn't like the solution, they whined.

_None of them understand you. None of them deserve you._

"Robin?"

Robin jerked to a stop and pulled his eyes up from his knees. A golden countenance of worry waited in the corridor ahead, held aloft by a graceful form frozen in surprise much as he was. Glistening lips parted to offer him some of their only unsolicited words in weeks: "Robin," Starfire asked softly, "To whom do you speak?"

The question startled Robin; he hadn't been speaking aloud. Had he? "No one," he replied curtly, masking his surprise behind a wave of ire.

Starfire's expression dulled. "Oh," she said. She stared a moment more at his furrowed brow. "Are you well?" she asked in a tentative voice.

Robin felt his anger return. After a month of avoiding him, now she wanted to talk like nothing happened. "What do you care?" he snapped.

He regretted his tone in an instant as he watched her mouth freeze open. An answer sat perched on her tongue, waiting for her wounded heart to push it out. But Starfire swallowed her response instead as she turned back the way she had come. She walked quickly and did not look back.

Filled with anger, pining for more, Robin could not stop himself from calling out to her. "You never told me why, Kory."

Starfire stopped. Robin watched her head tilt and start to turn. Her crown of fire swayed across her back as though to beckon him forward. He lifted a boot to follow her, with a dozen apologies forming in his head for whatever he did to drive her off. But she rose from the carpet and jetted around the corner without a sound, a sprightly retreat that left no trace and no room for doubt as to her wishes.

Robin stared down the empty corridor. His anger returned twofold, quelled only by the sound of his glove ripping under the intense pressure of his alien strength. He glanced down at the torn glove, one in a long line of many that had broken as his abilities continued to grow. With a reluctant sigh, he pulled a small canister from his utility belt, removed a miniscule white pill from within, and downed it with a silent grumble.

The rage in his head swam in a rush of chemical calm. The rage in his chest tightened and grew.

* * *

"Good morning, sir. And how are we today?"

Patsy Walker offered her next customer the same professional smile she had offered the last customer. Rows of bleached teeth flashed at the old man opposite the bulletproof glass of her teller's station before she even laid eyes on him. The large overcoat he wore should have sent warning bells ringing in her head, but his face held a weathered, fatherly charm that put a touch of genuine into her smile. He smiled back warmly, making it easy to avoid staring at the black patch covering his eye.

He tipped an imaginary hat to her, brushing the edge of his silvery hair. "And a fine day to you, young lady."

His one eye sparkled, making Patsy's cheeks warm. She composed herself an in instant, and said, "Can I help you, sir?"

The old man turned to and fro with his hands buried in his coat pockets. "I certainly hope so, my dear. This is the largest bank in Jump City, is it not?"

"Certainly, sir," Patsy said brightly.

He chuckled. "I imagine your security must be top of the line, what with all the metahuman riffraff running amok."

Now Patsy's warning bells awoke. The smile on her face faded as she answered slowly, "Our bank has a comprehensive—"

"Well, I suppose we'll find out." People in line behind him began to grumble at his idle tone. Their ranks began to stretch across the polished lobby floor, a problem to which he paid no mind. His eye, twinkling still, fell back to her fading smile. "If you could kindly collect the money in your vault for me, we can do this with a minimum of violence."

Patsy's smile fled alongside the color in her face. She quickly affixed a plastic grin to replace the real one, cementing it with a hollow chuckle. "I'm sorry?" she asked in a shaky voice.

His overcoat flapped open as the old man slapped his forehead. Dark, two-toned armor peeked out at her from beneath its canvas folds. "You'll forgive me," he said. His dulcet tone remained, but the charm left his features, hardening into something else that chilled Patsy's blood. "It's been a long time. This," he said, turning around to announce loudly to the crowd, "Is a bank robbery.

"S-sir," stammered Patsy, "Are you..."

"Terribly embarrassing, I know," he said, sighing. A large pistol appeared in his hand, drawn with such a smooth motion that Patsy hadn't seen it coming until the barrel stared unblinkingly into her wide eyes. "I haven't stooped to a bank job in...Well, never, really. Oh, but I assure you," he said in an amiable monotone, "This paltry glass won't stop my weapon."

"I...I..."

Servos whispered from his collar as metal sprouted from his coat. The red and black petals swallowed his head, leaving only his monoptic glare visible through the newly formed helmet. "You can put that money together if you like," he told her through the helmet's grill. "The important thing is to make certain you trigger the silent alarm. I have a schedule to keep, and I'd appreciate a punctual response."

* * *

"Ow." Tek winced and hissed as the hypodermic needle pierced her skin. A cool trickle entered the crook of her elbow before the needle withdrew. The pain of the prick faded quickly as she looked back up at her nurse and smiled. "Thanks."

Beast Boy smiled back as he set the needle aside. Both of them bobbed on Ops' couch with his enthused nod as he drawled, "Wull, sure, li'l lady. Happy t' oblige." His grin split as he received the desired giggle. "You could probably learn to do this yourself, if you wanted to. I'd hate to have to jab you every time I see you."

Blush crept up her face as she looked away. "Oh," she said. "I don't think I could do that. I'm not much good at anything."

"Hey, now," Beast Boy said. "If I can learn something, anybody can. And you're way good at a lot of stuff, like...um..." He faltered, sweating beneath her downcast gaze. "And what about the way you...eat?" Beast Boy's head dipped down, desperate to catch up with her falling eyes. "Hey, c'mon, you're, like, two weeks old. Cut yourself a break. Besides," he added quickly, "If it were me, I'd never sit through it. I hate needles!" His outline blurred and shrank. He clattered to the floor as a turtle, ducked into his shell.

Tek gave him another titter, softer this time. Her eyes remained floor bound as Beast Boy grew back into his human proportions and plopped back onto the couch. "Sorry. I'm being mopey again, aren't I? I had kind of a rough time with that training thing downstairs."

He scoffed. "That? No worries. Every one of us has tanked one of Robin's 'Doomsday Gauntlets' before. Why, this one time—"

Ops' door swept open, pulling both their gazes to the back of the room. The sour look framed in silken blonde met their looks with challenge as it entered. Shoulders wearing from a morning of chip-carrying tensed as Terra shot, "What?"

Beast Boy missed every sign of her mood. "Hey, Tara," he said in a cheery voice. "Tek here was just telling me about how she failed the Robin Test this morning."

The floor beneath them trembled as Terra crushed her eyes into slivers of amber fire. Her teeth clacked together in a fearsome growl. "What's so funny about that?" she snarled.

He exchanged surprised glances with Tek as he found himself under attack. "What? I didn't—"

"You think that's funny?" demanded Terra. Every stomp of her boots rattled the tower, feeding the fiery ball of fear in Beast Boy's stomach into a raging inferno by the time she reached him. "You think it's funny when that puffed-up bird boy talks down to us?"

Tek shrank in the face of Terra's fury more so than Beast Boy. Her voice barely escaped her trembling lips as she said, "He didn't really..."

"Don't laugh at me, Garfield!" Terra shouted. "Don't you ever laugh at me!"

Beast Boy scrambled to his feet with upturned hands. Tara, what're you talking about? I wasn't laughing at anybody. What's wrong?"

She stopped advancing on the confused and terrified shapeshifter. The surprise on his face became mirrored in hers. Then she clenched her eyes shut and rubbed her face, breathing slow and deep. "Sorry," she muttered. "I'm sorry, Gar."

The doors parted again, this time for a gleaming wall of a man. "Is everybody okay?" Cyborg asked in a concerned tone. "What was that? Was there a quake?"

Raven and Starfire entered after, followed a few seconds later by Robin. The sorceress's accusatory glare shot straight for Terra, churning Terra's stomach with a mix of irritation and self-recrimination. She had been taught better control than that. Such a lapse embarrassed her and her teacher. "I—"

"My bad," Beast Boy interjected, stepping forward. He cast a sheepish glance back, catching Terra's eye for an extra half-second. "I wanted to show off my one-man 'Elephants on Parade' to the girls, and I guess I got carried away."

Terra swallowed her surprise for the 'Ops is not a playground' speech they could see brewing in Robin's scowl. Luckily for them all (for every Titan, even Tek, had heard Robin drill the speech into Beast Boy), the room came aglow with pulsing red light. A klaxon blared as the central bay window flashed with static and then became an enormous digitized map of the city. One spot on the map blinked with a red circle, with codes and symbols beside it.

The symbols told Robin everything he needed to know in an instant. "A robbery at the Bank of Perez."

"Possible metahuman perpetrators," Raven added, trading looks with Robin.

Robin didn't hesitate an instant. His dour mood disappeared as he turned for the door, barking orders. "Starfire, Beast Boy, I want you to fly out on point and recon the bank. Terra, grab a rock. The rest of us will—"

"Actually," Cyborg called, stopping Robin in his tracks, "I thought we might try something else." At Robin's questioning look, he grinned and said, "Head downstairs, y'all. We've got wheels."

As the rest of the Titans filed out in a flurry of excitement, eager to see Cyborg's latest car, Tek bobbed in their wake with listless confusion. She gestured and fumbled for words so badly that Beast Boy took pity on her. Just hang back," he said, pausing long enough to give her shoulder a pat. "We'll take this one."

"Sure," Tek murmured to his retreating back.

* * *

The Vehicle Bay echoed with their steps, offering Cyborg some makeshift applause in the absence of his friends' appreciation. He didn't blame them entirely; the massive space had stood empty for over a month, with nothing to fill it save for Cyborg's aspirations (which, incidentally, could not drive them to and from the mall). Its underwater seaport still sat unused, sealed away beneath steel doors.

But now a pair of silver tarps occupied the sprawling floor. The tarp Cyborg led them to was huge. The other, which they passed en route, was colossal, easily a dozen times as large as the first. As they passed the colossal, shapeless silver hulk, Beast Boy's gait loped and looped as he tried and failed to take sight of all of it at once. "What is this one, Vic?" he asked. "A T-Blimp?"

Raven's lip curled. It was impossible to miss the way Starfire kept her eyes off the titanic silver sheet, whose shape tensed her golden shoulders. "It's the Gordanian scout ship, you clod," she shot back at Beast Boy. His gaze flicked to Starfire. He fell silent.

"You're both wrong," said Cyborg. He grasped the tarp of the smaller shape and twisted around, fighting the gloom Raven spread through them with a brilliant smile. "That's a work in progress. This," he said, sweeping the sheet off with dramatic flair, "Is a work of art."

The sheen of the material beneath put its silver sheet to shame. Beneath the fluorescent rigs high overhead, its shine almost blinded the Titans. Each of them reached up to shield his or her eyes as Cyborg unveiled his project. Then their arms and their jaws collectively dropped.

"That's not a T-Car," whispered Terra.

It resembled a great gunmetal beetle, elongated and enormous, bigger than a fire engine and veined with Cyborg's blue circuitry pattern in its seamless armor. At its top, a pair of shallow domes sat with long, unearthly barrels tilted down to rest against the fuselage. A glossy, charcoal visor stretched across the vehicle's front like a great, angular scowl. It crouched upon wheels and treads, both of which stood taller than Cyborg. He leaned against one length of the tank-like treads and grinned. "No," he said. "It isn't."

Even Robin gaped. "This is our new car?" he asked. Cyborg's previous model could take them for a grocery run as well as into a fight. This monstrosity would look more at home charging onto Normandy Beach.

"This," Cyborg told their incredulous leader, "Is me getting frustrated after people keep blowing up my car. I call it the Combat Utility Titan Transport Egression Rover." He gave its armored hide a tender pat. The metallic clang made his friends cringe. "She's my new baby."

"Your baby looks like it eats tanks," muttered Raven.

Cyborg's prideful smile sobered. "Yeah, well, the controls are all similar to the T-Car's systems, and we've still got an emergency downtown. So climb in if you don't feel like 'porting us there." Raven wisely remained silent as Cyborg gestured at the vehicle's side. An unseen signal summoned a seam from its armor, splitting it open into a ramped hatch which they ascended into the interior.

Robin followed Cyborg through the narrow channel of his futuristic carrier. Seats sat two-by-two in the aisle, just far enough from each other to allow passage. Each seat corresponded to a station, a console filled with dizzying displays and controls. The seats bore tags to label their functions, which the Titans called out as they strapped in.

"Navigation," Cyborg said, sinking into his custom-fitted seat; if he had it his way, no one else would ever sit there. Flipping a trio of switches, he announced, "Plasma power plants coming online. Drive systems check out...and are standing ready."

Robin sat next to him in the front. "Operations," he said. "Linking to the Titan Tunnel Transport system." His fingers danced across one of three available keyboards as his screens came to life. "Plotting the fastest route available now."

Terra plopped in behind Cyborg. "Weapons One," she said, and examined her own readouts. "Fore turret on standby mode. Forward cannons are charged. Rocket racks are..." She blinked, squinted, and leaned toward her screen. "We really have that many rockets?" she asked.

"Weapons Two," droned Raven, across from Terra. "Aft turret on standby. Vehicular anti-pursuit armaments ready for deployment. Surface-to-air artillery loaded and ready."

Beast Boy crashed down into the chair behind Raven, calling out his chair's label unconsciously as he swung around to take in his console. "Passenger Two," he said, and then stopped. The interior wall next to his chair had a single, simple monitor built in, and a cup holder beneath that. "Wait, what? Aw, man..."

Starfire sat opposite him, as far from Robin as she could, and said nothing.

The vehicle rumbled to life. Its engines whined, whirred, and then hummed as Cyborg goosed the throttle. Steel treads rattled against the Vehicle Bay's deck as the massive transport rumbled toward the Tunnel Transport entrance. Cyborg couldn't have looked more pleased. "The CUTTER is ready to rock," he said.

"Titans, go!" Robin called, smiling despite himself.

CUTTER roared through the yawning gates of the Tunnel, opening and closing the portal with a silent signal. Unbeknownst to the adventure-bound teens, a malevolent grin waiting in the shadows of their tunnel with electronic jaws to gobble that signal up.

**To Be Continued**


	25. Fearsome Five: Arrive

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Fearsome Five**: _Arrive_

"Where have all the good men gone," Tek asked melodiously, adding, "And where are all the gods?" Her sweatpants swayed to the beat that thrummed through Ops as she bent into the refrigerator, collecting the last of the Tower's fresh fruit for the smoothie she found herself craving. It felt good to be out of the open-backed jumpsuit the Titans had designed for her, even if it meant she had been left behind and alone while they rushed off to who-knew-what. "Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?"

Being a teenaged newborn, Tek found no end to her amazement in the process of discovering herself. The amnesiac woke up each day eager to discover something new. Even her name sounded alien, having been bestowed upon her only two weeks before by the Titans' resident shapeshifter (who, incidentally, had become her favorite company in light of Starfire's progressively worsening mood).

And so, while flipping past TuneTV on a boredom-fueled channel surf, the discovery that she loved music brought Tek an immense joy. She listened to everything she could get her hands on: pounding rap, soulful jazz, dramatic ballads, ear-splitting rock, and twanging country. She loved it all. And the subsequent discovery that she lacked even one iota of talent for music didn't keep her from singing along to each song once she'd learned its lyrics. Nor could her roommates' pulled faces keep her from crooning (a favorite new word of hers).

"Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?" sang Tek, asynchronous with the track's talented tenor as she dropped chopped pineapple and orange into the blender. "Late at night I toss and turn, and dream of what I need."

Tek drew breath for the chorus though a rare smile. She loved this song. It always seemed appropriate, living where she did. She took the remote to Cyborg's ludicrously-sized, self-indulgent sound system and lofted its volume to cover the electric grumble of the blender. Her arms flew out as she spun, smiling and singing and dancing, all clumsily.

"I need a hero...!"

The Tower quaked beneath her, throwing Tek to the floor. Her scream was lost in the shriek of stressed metal and shattering glass. The tremor ended as quickly as it began, leaving Tek to tremble on her own. Seconds later, the lights flickered out, and her pounding ballad faded from the room's hidden speakers. Sunlight poured through empty frames, their giant bay windows heaped upon the floor in jagged pieces.

Unbearable silence choked Ops, broken only by the bass timpani in Tek's chest. Jellied legs lifted her from the carpet and spun her in a slow circle as she tried to process thoughts through a rush of adrenaline and fear. "H-hello?" she called out. "Is anybody...um, Computer?" Her spun stopped on the center pane of Ops' massive bay window, the only one to survive the quake by its unique design, as it doubled as the Titans' main view screen. "Hello? Computer?" she stammered.

Tek shrieked and jumped as the window derezzed into screeching static. Three feet in the air, she saw the static become a black screen with flashing red letters. "**INTRUDER ALERT!**" a synthetic voice bellowed at her. "**SECURITY BREACH ON LEVEL FOUR. AUTOMATED DEFENSES INOPERATIVE. RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE—**"

The screen and voice fizzled, faded, and disappeared entirely, leaving Tek to stare in horror at the calm, glistening ocean through the window. "It's okay," she whispered breathlessly. She reached for her waist, muttering, "I'll just call the others on my comm..." The cold emptiness of her sweatpants' elastic waistband met her fingers. "—on!" she finished, and then wailed.

No. Stop crying.

She drew in a deep breath. The situation wasn't nearly as bleak as she imagined. From her sketchy memory, she reminded herself that they lived in California, which experienced frequent earthquakes. Cyborg's constant Tower upgrades left its systems prone to glitches, which could explain the loss in power, as well as the ominous report of intruders. Because she was totally safe in the Tower. The Titans had told her so.

"There is absolutely nothing wrong," Tek told herself, drawing upright. She dried her face with her palms, adopting a confident look that did not match her twisting innards. "You're going downstairs, and you're going to find your communicator. Then you'll call the others..."

The Tower shook again, this time more subtly. A high-pitched cackle vanished into the tail end of the tremor, possibly the product Tek's fearful imagination, but possibly not.

Tek shivered. "—and then," she continued shakily, "You're going to curl up in your room and wait until this giant T stops being so scary."

* * *

Lieutenant Smith of the Jump City Special Crimes Unit dove behind his patrol car. His weather-beaten fedora flew off his head and burned in the laser barrage he ducked to avoid. "Get down, you mooks!" he bellowed. 

His officers ducked behind the patrol car perimeter they'd set around the Bank of Perez. Doing so saved them from the scissoring crimson streams of laser, which originated from and melted through the bank's opulent glass entryway. Glowing glass goop drizzled down the front doors, illuminating portions of their attackers behind the glass wall. No one cop ever saw a whole picture of their attackers, merely snatches of midnight-colored muscle and deadly, stark glares.

The air above the patrol cars sizzled. Smith gritted his teeth as the smoldering halves of his hat fell before him, the tragic victim of the barrage he had narrowly avoided. "I'm missing Katie's birthday cake for this?" he muttered. "Dandy. I suppose now's about the time things get worse."

His spoken thought became reality as the ground beneath his hands and knees began to shake. Before long, he heard a rumbling that grew closer from behind their perimeter. Smith rolled himself into a crouch in time to see the biggest, most frightening tank he had ever seen roll around the street corner.

The massive vehicle barreled straight for Smith, shaking the street with its bulk. Smith had trouble rising in the face of the tank as it screeched to a halt, digging long furrows into the pavement behind its locked treads. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" he shouted, stamping his foot. The laser blasts burning past his head didn't register with him as the side of the tank folded open, allowing six reasons for his chronic stomach pain to pile out.

"Lieutenant." Robin greeted him with a curt nod, his cape drawn around him like a cloak. Then he ducked involuntarily as the laser barrage continued. "Titans, down!" he bellowed, and dove behind Smith's car with the rest of his team in tow.

Smith joined the line-up, muscling Starfire out of the way so he could yell directly in Robin's ear. "Do you have any idea how much I dread seeing you kids?" he asked. "Sweet Jesus. And what is that monstrosity? You're in California, not Iraq!"

"Who is attacking the bank facilities?" asked Starfire, hoping to end Smith's impotent rant.

The old cop's face twisted with angered wrinkles. "Not sure. They haven't made any demands, or tried to escape. Hell, they didn't bother taking any hostages; kicked everybody out and set up shop inside. But if we so much as poke our heads out..."

A laser blast shattered through the windows of Smith's squad car, peppering them with superheated bits of glass. With the exception of Cyborg, everyone quickly shook themselves free of the stuff before their hair or clothes were singed.

"You get the idea," Smith said. His grimace deepened.

Cyborg risked a brief glance over the edge of the hood. "I count three different firing vectors." His organic eye twinkled as it wandered back to the rear, where his new baby squatted. "I can link up with the CUTTER's fire control systems and take them out from here."

"Well, that's a great plan, assuming you aren't attached to the bank," Terra said. Cyborg's smile fell.

They turned to Robin for a judgment call. The Teen Wonder was already halfway over the car, crushing the edge of its roof with his steadying grasp. He cleared the car in a single bound and sprinted to toward the sprawling steps of the bank. It didn't take but a second for the three marksmen waiting within to converge their shots on him. It didn't matter.

A primal scream tore from Robin's throat as three lasers united dead center in his chest. Capable of cutting steel like butter, they couldn't even scratch Robin's tunic. He charged up the stairs, curling his palms. His brow furrowed deeper as he forced energy into his hands, shaping them into spheres as he cleared the last step in an acrobatic leap. Bird bolts shot from his hands in midair and burned three neat holes in the glass.

Haunting silence fell over the entryway by the time Robin touched down. The Titans and police rose slowly from the barricade. If Smith had looked shocked at the CUTTER's arrival, he now stood flabbergasted at Robin's display of power. The rest of the squad followed his lead and his expression as he asked, "What the hell was that?"

Raven circumnavigated his car with a sniff. "He works out," she muttered.

Beast Boy lingered as his friends pressed on. He flexed next to Smith, and added, "Dude does, like, twenty push-ups in a row. He's rock."

Cyborg didn't share his friend's good spirits. He led the way up the steps, preparing his scowl. It wasn't ready fast enough; Robin slipped through the bank's doors, intent upon his targets within. "This our new policy?" he called out, heedless to the troubled looks Starfire and Terra gave him. "Shoot first and ask questions later?"

The door flew open for a limp body cast in black spandex to roll out, forcing Cyborg back a step. The body's empty white eyes stared up at Cyborg while its chest spilled over with burnt hose and sparking wires. Similar eyes strode out the door in a scowl leveled at the rest of Robin's team. "Not a new policy when it comes to robots," Robin shot back.

A perfect circle of red blotched the construct's mask. Raven knelt down and traced its edge with her finger. "Does anyone else think these toys look familiar?" she asked.

"Slade." The word rattled from Terra's lips. Her face and voice dripped with disgust.

Laser fire smashed through the remainder of the entrance's glass and danced between the loitering teens. A glancing blow ricocheted off of Cyborg's shoulder and neatly parted Beast Boy's hair. The shapeshifter yelped and ducked behind his buddy as his teammates braced themselves for battle. "Speak of the devil," Cyborg grunted.

Through the shattered windows, the Titans saw a stirring in the shadowy depths of the bank lobby. That stirring grew into a small army of Slade's lanky, lethal robots, their soulless eyes glinting crimson in the glow of their weapons.

"Looks more like the devil's helpers." Beast Boy growled at the approaching phalanx.

His growl echoed in Robin, growing into another howl as he crashed through the entryway remnants. His teammates stood frozen in his wake for a second, stunned. Starfire was the first to fly after him in silence. The rest glanced among themselves, shrugging collectively.

"Titans, go," said Cyborg.

* * *

Eerie light trickled through the bowels of Titans Tower, drawing jagged shadows across the floor and turning Tek's home into a terrifying nightmare. She crept through the corridors, guided by emergency lighting and a bouncing gaze that tried to be everywhere at once. A pan from the kitchen trembled in her sweaty palms. 

"Two floors down. Down the hall, around the corner, and there's the room." Tek repeated the phrase under her breath every few steps to shore up her crumbling courage. "You can do this, alley girl. There's nothing wrong. It was just a glitch."

A soft growl came from the vents, spitting an icy chill down the back of Tek's tank top. She screamed before she could identify the noise as the central air conditioning. Several deep breaths later, she continued down the hall, cursing her home for betraying her; every familiar sound had become frightening; every shadow hid a monster. She could practically feel the fuzz on her scalp turning gray.

Tek approached the corner spoken of in her mantra. She recognized the Evidence Room on the right. The landmark helped calm her frazzled nerves, for it was only a few steps further to her room. Then she saw the only light currently operating in the Tower. It spilled out beneath the Evidence Room's door, which sat forced open. Tek could hardly hear the voices worming through the broken door over the hammering of her heart.

"Be careful with that, skankwad!" a shrill voice screeched through the gap. "Do you even know what that can do to us?" The voice drew Tek forward to the crack in the door, where she peered in. Another outburst from the voice made her jump back: "Stay away from that! What did I just say?"

When she found the courage, Tek pressed her eye into the door's gap again. An unfamiliar trio lurked in the middle of the room, pushing glass cases aside to make space for a large, angular metal cylinder. The one who spoke, who was still speaking now, stood at the base of the cylinder with his hands and goggles buried in its circuitry. The companion he had rebuked wore strips of leather in what could generously be called a jumpsuit, hiding her dark eyes beneath a scowl the same color as her rusty shock of hair. The third, a thin girl with a complexion as pale as Raven's and twin tufts of bubble gum hair, handed tools to the little green one as he griped for them.

"This is what you do on your Friday nights, isn't it?" the leather-clad girl said. She examined the little one's work with a sniff. The air around her wavered, as though rolling with intense heat. The effect mesmerized Tek until the pale one spoke.

"Cork it, Shimmer. Gizmo's proven himself. All you've done is complain." The pale girl spared Shimmer a nasty look before returning to Gizmo's side. "Keep it up, and you're gone. I don't care whose sister you are."

Shimmer sniffed again, this time amused instead of disdainful. She began to wander through the Evidence Room in a fit of boredom. Each artifact, which Tek had looked upon with wonderment, barely rated a second's glance with Shimmer. The surly redhead picked up a regally-clad puppet and jammed her hand up its keister. "These guys have the dumbest crap. We don't have anything like this in our place," she noted, working the puppet's jaw with unseen fingers.

"**Our** place," pink-hair piped in. "You don't live there yet."

"Whatever, Jinx."

Tek watched them continue on, unsure of what to do. Beast Boy had mentioned other heroes who were allies of the Titans, but only in passing. Could these be they? But then who had set the intruder alarm off if they hadn't? And her mysterious memory, somehow intimately familiar with all things Titan from the moment of her alley birth, had no recollection of these three. No, she told herself. It would be the height of naïveté to think that these people were here to help her. Everything about them screamed of villainy.

As she pulled away to run to her communicator, her pan bumped into the doorframe. The metal resonated in her hand with a soft hum. She froze, sucking in breath, and pressed her back to the door. Dead air burned in her lungs as she waited, unable to think, unable to move.

"What the scrag was that?" asked Gizmo, crushing Tek's hopes from the other room.

Seconds inched by in silence. Tek's chest blazed, begging for air, but she dared not breathe. Part of her screamed for retreat. Another wanted back into the room. But neither side had time to win over the other; the cool door at Tek's back melted into icy water, splashing over her shoulders and onto the floor.

Tek screamed and spun around. Shimmer stood opposite her in the doorframe, and lowered her hands with a sick smile. "Lookie here," she purred, crossing her arms. "Some excitement." She tilted back to speak to her friends, but her eyes never left Tek's heaving chest. "So which one is this? The alien, or that emo chick?"

Lilac energy crackled in Jinx's eyes. "Neither," she said with a scowl. "This one is new."

"Doesn't look like much." Gizmo scampered forward until his backpack sprouted a quartet of thick, jagged legs. The mechanical stalks lofted him high above their heads, giving him a prime angle to fire the compact cannons his pack produced next. "Let's blast her and see what she does."

The sight of three sneers converging on her proved too much for Tek. She scrambled backward, dropping her pan, and stumbled into a full run that carried her around the corner. She could hear the grin in Shimmer's voice as she called, "Tally ho."

* * *

The rooftop door of the bank blew off its hinges on a final blast of emerald energy. Scraps of robot scattered atop the ruined door as it landed, littering the bare rooftop with smoldering metal. Overhead, police helicopters circled the building, stirring the sticky afternoon air with their loud rotors as they searched for signs of trouble. 

Beast Boy jumped out first, followed soon after by a parade of his teammates. He wore a vanquished robot's mask as a crown, crowing over the remains of their last foe. "Ha! That was the coolest fight we've had in a long time," he cried. "Seriously! Totally awesome. Did you guys see the way I—"

"We were there, Salad Head," Cyborg shot, silencing him. He scanned the empty rooftop, leaving no spectrum unturned. "Whatever those mannequins were trying to keep us from, it's not up here."

Terra brushed the tar paper covering the roof with her glove, gazing about. "That's impossible. There's nothing else out here."

Cyborg's scowl deepened. She was right, of course, but so was he; the rooftop hid no secrets his sensors could find, and he trusted his sensors more than any ten normal human eyes. He watched thermographic images of Starfire and Beast Boy walking the length of the roof on opposite sides. They were shifting pillars of reds and oranges to Cyborg, set against the cool blues of the stonework. When he glanced down at Robin, he had to blink at the bright flare of his body heat, brightest at the chest where the symbiote rested. "So what now?" he asked.

Robin didn't answer at once. He stood a handful of steps from the door, draped in his fluttering cape. The wind danced in his hair and carried to him a sense of foreboding, stronger than the one that had guided him through the bank. His brain fought against the sluggish calm of Doctor Brown's tranquilizers as he searched the scene. His masked eyes could not find anything more substantial than Cyborg's scanners, Raven's empathy, or Beast Boy's nose had yet yielded.

"He's here," said Robin.

Ponderous applause startled the Titans from behind the structure that housed the door. They whirled collectively, searching for its source, and found it in the dark figure circling into sight. Thunder clapped each time his hands united. A smile glinted in his single eye. "I'm pleased to see all those abilities aren't dulling your senses, Robin," Slade said. "Your company still leaves something to be desired, but you aren't completely hopeless."

Energy lit in Robin's hands with some effort. Starfire's hands glowed as well. Cyborg's arm mechamorphed and too aim for Slade's chest. Beast Boy crouched and grew, snarling into a velociraptor that circled around their formation. The ground beneath them clamored in tune to the amber glow of Terra's eyes.

"My 'company' is just fine," retorted Robin. He kicked a piece of robot at Slade, purposely missing. "Yours is in pieces. Surrender and we won't go too hard on you."

Slade stopped before them. Hands draped behind his back, he offered Robin a slow nod. "Here I am," he told them in a low, calm voice. "I believe it's your move."

The Titan pack surged forward with Starfire in the lead. But Starfire jolted to a stop at the arm Robin swung out in front of her, and landed in a stumble. The light of her eyes faded for confusion, which she turned upon Robin's heavy scowl. Her teammates paused at the sudden stop. The twinkle in Slade's eye froze.

"This is wrong," said Robin, talking more to himself than to his team. "Slade's never fought unless it benefits him, and unless he's sure he'll win."

Beast Boy's once-again-human legs jittered. "Are you kidding me? He's right there!" he shouted, waving his arms at the placid Slade. "And you're not even gonna try to smash him?"

Golden worry floated at Robin's shoulder. "Robin?" asked Starfire.

Robin's eyes locked with Slade's. The two masked figures stood in a mental showdown, each trying to read the other in the tensed silence. At long last, Robin's mask drew wide with surprise. "Everyone, get back to the Tower," he shouted.

"Very good, Robin." Slade praised him in a flat voice, and without applause.

Raven glanced between the glaring pair. Curiosity quirked her twilight brow. "Did we miss a step?"

"Get back to the Tower!" Robin bellowed. His glare broke from Slade's to burn into his teammates. Cyborg's thermographics caught sight of a brilliant flare in Robin's lenses. He switched to the visible spectrum in time to see crimson light fade from Robin's mask. "Slade wants us here," growled Robin. "He drew us out. That means he doesn't want us at home. Now go!"

The acidic tone spurred them into motion. Cyborg caught Raven's hand as she took to the air and rode on borrowed levitation down the side of the building. Veloci-Beast Boy dipped his head and scooped up a yelping Terra, and then leapt over the roof's edge, morphing in mid-jump to become a gliding pterodactyl.

Robin watched them go, unable to overlook the single lollygagger in their retreat. "Starfire..."

"I will not leave you to fight alone," snapped Starfire.

She met Robin's hard look with one of her own, eyes aglow with determination. "Fine," he said, turning back to where Slade stood. "Just follow my lead and stay out of my—"

The rooftop was empty once more. Robin and Starfire spun opposite each other, searching the tar paper ground for signs of his escape. Glowing hate colored Robin's search red as he called out, "Slade!"

Starfire flitted from one end of the roof to the other, riding the gentle breeze. There was no trace of Slade anywhere, and the distant sound of police helicopters covered what subtle sounds his movement would have made. "He has departed," she said. "Perhaps he has followed the others. Perhaps you were wrong..."

Robin thrust his chin up and shouted to the sky, "You can't fool me, Slade. I'm not going anywhere until you're a grease stain on my boot!"

"Exactly what I was counting on, Robin." Slade's voice echoed from all around. "I had hoped to fight you without any distractions," he continued, earning a fierce and undirected glare from Starfire. "But I suppose we take what we can get."

The two heroes drifted together, turning back to back in search of the disembodied voice's source. Their hands lit with colorful energy, ready to decimate the first sign of Slade's two-toned visage. Robin's bird bolts flickered in-hand, faltering as he called, "Whatever your game is, Slade, it's over. I'll stop you once and for all."

"You're right about one thing, Robin," the low reverberation called back.

Movement from above caught their eyes. The teens' arms shot up, pouring dozens of bolts above their heads in the blink of an eye. The snap shots danced wildly around the tiny, blinking sphere that fell at them. Robin and Starfire parted on instinct, only having time enough to make space for the sphere to drop between them. As Robin saw the first flash of fire rip from the sphere, he heard Slade finish:

"The game is over."

* * *

The de-powered bedroom door couldn't fight Tek's fear-driven strength for long, but the seconds it took to force them open went agonizingly slow. She struggled through the gap before the door's hydraulics snapped it shut, and she stumbled onto her carpet with a whimper. She crawled to her bedside, clawing at its sheets to pull herself upright. 

Yellow salvation glinted from her nightstand. Tek snatched the communicator up and flipped it open. Buttons crumpled beneath her thumb as she pressed every control she could find on the device. "Hello?" she shouted into its open face. "Can anyone hear me? I need your help, please!"

The screen flickered a moment. She almost felt relieved, until Gizmo's face resolved itself from the static. _"I don't think so, Chicken Little,"_ he said, sneering at her. _"I started jamming all frequencies even before we cut the power. Your dork friends don't even know anything's wrong. But don't worry."_ A sick smile spread over his munchkin features. _"A couple of our friends are coming to keep you company. Heh."_

Tek screamed as her door exploded into shards. She dropped her cackling communicator and slid back hard against the bed, cowering from the massive wall of hairy muscle that ducked through her doorframe. His muttonchops spread into a grin as he glanced down at Tek. "Look what we got here, Psimon. The snots got themselves a pet kitten."

His companion squeezed around him, coming into view. Tek screamed again at the newcomer, a young man in dark clothes and a long, flowing coat. His hawkish features unsettled her, but her scream came at the sight of his throbbing brain, which was visible through a glass dome that served as his skull. "Quite a plain specimen, actually, Mammoth," he noted.

"Who...w-who are you?" stammered Tek. She curled her knees to her chest and gaped.

Mammoth chuckled. He leaned in close, snorting in her face. "Who do you think?" he asked. "We're the Mean Titans. Now who are you?"

Trembling, Tek's eyes darted back to her communicator. "I...I'm a Titan too," she told him. "Stay back!"

His chuckle grew into a full guffaw. Tek yelped and flew back as Mammoth flicked her in the forehead, lighting stars behind her eyes. She crashed onto the opposite side of the bed in a heap, her head throbbing and spinning. "So what's your shtick?" laughed Mammoth. "Bleeding?"

"It will be soon enough," said Psimon, snickering.

Tek lay still, unable to think or move for all the pain shooting from her forehead. She felt the beast inside her clawing at the chemical bars of its cage. The injections began to fizzle beneath the weight of her adrenaline. She could feel the beast pushing at her psyche, and began to cry. "No," she whispered. "No, please..."

Mammoth mistook her pleas with gusto, slapping Psimon hard on the back. "Listen to that," he said to his crumpling companion. "One love tap and she's already begging."

The narrow space behind Tek's bed flooded with blinding blue light, forcing the villainous pair back a step. Psimon shielded his eyes with spindly hands and squinted into the brief nova. "What in blazes is that?" he snapped.

Three seconds later, all hell broke loose.

**To Be Continued**


	26. Fearsome Five: Survive

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Fearsome Five**: _Survive_

Starfire's ears rang in the wake of a deafening explosion, making it impossible to think. Her face smarted and her lungs burned until she coughed them clean of smoke. She groaned and rolled out of the stonework crater her spine had pounded into the lip of the bank roof. Doubles of everything swam in her eyes. She blinked them into a single world, and called out, "Robin?"

If Robin answered, she couldn't hear it for the whine in her ears. She didn't find him until a moment later, when she spied him, similarly sooty and stirring on the far end of the rooftop. He sat up and shook his head clear as she stumbled drunkenly through the air to join him. The points of his hair pointed straight back from his blackened face and chest, and a long, thin crack split the lens of his mask in twain; she wondered if she looked so bad.

He looked up at her approach. When his lips moved, she hard the barest whisper of his voice. "What?" she shouted, grateful of the sound of her own voice as the ringing in her ears grew silent.

"I'm fine!" he snapped, irritated at having to repeat himself. His scowl pushed past Starfire to scour the rest of the rooftop. Still there were no signs of Slade save for the scorch marks he and Starfire wore. "Blast!"

Enraged, he lashed out at the short cement wall surrounding the roof's edge. His normal extraordinary strength would have been enough to shatter it into rubble. When his hand struck, pain exploded through his knuckles, staggering him with surprise. The concrete wall cracked. So too, he suspected, did several bones in his hand.

Starfire noticed his eyes widen and his face pale, and leaned in to examine his glove. "Are you hurt?" she asked.

Robin drew himself back into his cape and shook his hand. The tranquil fuzz from his medication grew worse as he felt a smug, ethereal 'harrumph' roll through his chest. The dull everyday aches and pains that he hadn't felt since joining with his symbiote began anew, catching him off-guard. He heard Starfire ask him again, and could not look back at her, or bring himself to consider the idea of his powers disappearing. "It's nothing," he growled, forcing his temper back under control.

"Perhaps we should not have separated. Our friends could help us."

"I told you this was a trap," Robin said. He reached the roof's center and dropped into a crouch. Starfire floated after him. "Slade was drawing us out. I don't know why," he told her.

Both Titans froze as Slade's voice returned to the roof. "So sure, are you, Robin? Sure enough to gamble with your friends' lives?"

Ginger brows knit on Starfire's face. "Robin, we must—"

"Quiet." Robin ignored the sprite floating at his shoulder and closed his eyes. Slade's voice came from all directions, probably through a system of hidden speakers set up to confuse them. He drew in a deep breath and forced his mind still, ignoring the steady ebb of his strength. Whatever abilities he was losing, there were still other skills at his disposal that remained sharp as ever. "When I say, let loose with as much power as you can," he said.

"But..."

"Quiet," he said again.

Robin listened hard, holding his breath to take in every detail of their battlefield. The rooftop thrummed with the sound of distant police helicopters. Their rotors' wind flittered down upon the teens as a gentle stirring of air. He could hear Starfire's whispered breath, her waving hair and her fluttering skirt as she looked upon him with confusion. The concrete rooftop grinded beneath his boots as he shifted his weight. His heartbeats pounded and slowed, anticipating a moment of opportunity. And then it came.

"You don't really intend to beat me with that old trick, do you?" Slade asked from all around. "I—"

Robin shot up and grabbed Starfire's wrists. He spun the pair of them around to face one of the bank's industrial air conditioning units – boxlike structures of metal that dotted the roof – and knelt down, pulling Starfire's hands together above his head. "There!" he shouted.

Emerald fire burned the tips of Robin's hair summoned a streaming bolt. The air crackled around Robin's head, but he kept his place, guiding Starfire's shot to the AC unit. Both teens gritted their teeth against the power of the shot, their arms quaking together. But their efforts were rewarded as Slade leapt from behind the unit at the last moment, escaping the resultant explosion as the star blast tore the unit apart.

Slade hand-sprung to safety and landed without flaw. The scattered pieces of air conditioner bounced harmlessly off his armor. Unperturbed, he brushed himself clean and gazed at the Titans with contempt. "Even now, we remain so very alike, Robin," he said, and began to circle them. "Both of us continue to underestimate the other, even after so many surprises."

"What is it you're after in the Tower?" demanded Robin. He rose and squared off against Slade, matching him step for step in a dance they'd both come to know. Starfire trailed after him uncertainly, bouncing her eyes between the mortal foes while her hands glowed with readiness.

Each of Slade's deliberate steps rang out as a sudden and startling silence overtook the roof. "I assure you," he said, "It is nothing you need concern yourself with."

Starfire thrust her chin at the towering man. "We will stop you," she told him, growing angrier at the bemused twinkle in his eye. "Just as our friends will stop your nefarious plans for our home."

* * *

"Seriously," said Beast Boy, swiveling on his rotating seat in the CUTTER, "I cannot be the only one confused this time." He momentarily lost focus as the beckoning of the control panel beneath his arm grew too loud for his curiosity to ignore. Cyborg had only let him sit at the weapons station after his pledge to not touch the controls. The temptation agonized him, but he held his hand at bay...for the moment. 

Terra grunted, sitting opposite him at the other weapons station. "This is stupid," she groused. "Robin says jump, and we all hop back to the Tower like he left the stove on or something."

Riding shotgun, Raven worked at a fold-out keyboard, busily accessing Tower security's remote link-up. She didn't glance back as she countered, "No one knows Slade better than Robin."

Cyborg gripped the wheel and gritted his teeth. "That's what I'm afraid of," he muttered.

Raven's hooded eyes slid to Cyborg at the curious comment. She sensed waves of anxiety rolling off of him, and wasn't entirely certain that the possibility of another home invasion was its source. It was difficult to pinpoint amidst the tense emotions bouncing around the vehicle's interior. Before she had a chance to sift through the empathic quagmire, her screen blinked and beeped with a security update. "The security grid says it's all clear," she reported.

"See?" said Terra. "We need to turn around. We need to go after Slade!"

The Transport Tunnel's intermittent lights flickered on Cyborg's scowl. "Looks like Robin was wrong," he said. He had just begun to plot a reverse course through the tunnels when a thought occurred to him. "Wait. How 'all-clear' are we talking?" he asked Raven sidelong.

A few keystrokes delved Raven deeper into the report. "Not a whisper," she said.

The CUTTER lurched forward beneath them, throwing everyone back in their seats. Cyborg's restraints creaked as he leaned over the wheel. "After those freak suits trashed the island, I gave our security grid a major overhaul," he explained. "If a bird farts, I know when, where, and I have a chromatographic analysis, all before Tweety can say 'excuse me.'" His scowl fell deep and hard over his eyes. "There's always _something_ on the grid, whether it's recognized as a threat or not."

"You're kidding," Terra said a half-second before Beast Boy did.

"The only way it's completely clear is if someone's hacked it. Something's up at the Tower." Cyborg glanced over at Raven and said, "Maybe you should 'port over ahead of us and check it out."

Her scowl flashed. "I just tried," she said. "Something is keeping me from opening a gateway. I can't get through."

"Maybe we're outside your service zone," suggested Beast Boy.

Three glares cowed him back into silence, Raven's being the most venomous. "My mystic satellite providers are all in alignment," she snapped. "But there's a counter-magic field in the Tower. I can't get near it."

"Counter-magic?" asked Terra.

Cyborg shook his head and pressed harder on the accelerator. "Does anyone besides me wish for the days of Puppet King and Mad Mod?" he muttered.

"Who?" asked Terra, growing more perplexed.

Beast Boy leaned forward and grasped the seat in front of him, much to Raven's dismay. He shoved his head between the pair seated up front and said, "You guys aren't forgetting the worst part of this, are you?" At their confused glares, he threw his hands up and cried, "Hello? Are you forgetting that there are seven of us now?"

* * *

The last component slid into place, clicking ominously into the rest of the angular tower of circuitry and metal plating. Gizmo pulled back with a flourish, cupped his hands together, and created a faux-fanfare with cheers that filled the Evidence Room. 

His antics continued only as long as Jinx could stand to listen to them. "Knock it off, cyber-loser," she groused. "Is it done?"

Gizmo's lenses glistened as he glared up at Jinx. "Would you ask Edison if he'd finished his light bulb? Would you hassle Bell for his telephone?"

"We might," said Shimmer, sauntering into the room through the vacant door, "If they were teched-out little squirts who couldn't deliver." Her swaying hips swung to a stop next to Gizmo's fuming head, and she bent down to give the chest-high tower a look and a kick. "What is this crock pot of yours, anyway?"

Metal tendrils snared her ankle and yanked it away. Shimmer yelped as her world flipped upside-down. Blood rushed to her pale face as Gizmo shouted, "You idiot! That's a Space-Time Implosion Device. You don't kick something that can squeeze a football field into the head of a pin, you pinhead!"

His sneer became a cry of alarm as the tentacle snaking from his pack blackened and crumpled like sand, allowing Shimmer to drop to the floor. She rolled to her feet and brushed the repurposed remains of his tentacle off her uniform. "I know how to say 'bomb.' Don't spaz, shrimp."

Jinx grasped her throbbing temples. "Both of you, shut up," she groaned. "Gizmo, prime the bo—the device. Shimmer, shut up extra." She cast a confused squint from the depths of her headache and added, "Weren't you supposed to be chasing that little speck?"

"Please," scoffed Shimmer. "My idiot brother and Captain Pickled Brain can handle her."

"Unless she has powers," countered Jinx, growing angrier at Shimmer's amateurish attitude. "Why else would the Titans keep her here?"

Shimmer's scoff returned twofold. "Looked to me like her power was running away. What do they call her," she asked with a laugh, "The Retreater?"

The Tower rumbled, ending Shimmer's laughter and setting all three teens on edge. They swiveled about in a vain attempt to find the tremor's cause. Jinx felt her headache grow worse still, and gritted her teeth. "What?" she snarled in challenge of their heroic surroundings.

Plaster and metal showered the room with a terrific crack, making a path through the wall through which Mammoth entered back-first. Trophies of adventures past crumpled underneath his muscles as he tumbled to a stop in front of his screaming comrades. The air swam with dust and fear in his wake, obscuring his path from the hallway. Mammoth groaned and rolled atop the marble bust of a hipster with Beatles hair and questionable teeth, and muttered, "Wha' 'appened?"

Brilliant hex lit Jinx's fists, chasing the dust out of the air. "Mammoth," she snapped, squinting through the settling cloud, "What's going on?"

Mammoth struggled to his hands and knees. Coughing, he mumbled, "Robot...ate the girl."

"What?"

Pearly metal glinted as the last of the dust cloud settled, drawing Jinx's eyes back to the gaping hole in the wall. A hulking, gorilla-sized figure composed of seamless white metal stood on the other side, glaring at them with an angular visor that stretched across its face. Its shoulders heaved as tinny breath whistled through its grill of a mouth.

Confusion and fear hit Jinx hard, prompting her to strike back without question. She dove to one side and let fly a massive hex that forced Mammoth to duck or lose his head. The magic crackled through the air and struck home, enveloping the hole. The robot stumbled back and vanished behind a fresh cloud of debris. Cracks ran the length of the wall as the room trembled in aftershock of the hex. Then, silence.

Jinx gulped deep breaths, choking on the dusty air. Gizmo, Jinx, Shimmer, and Mammoth all un-turtled as more of the wall crumbled free and fell into the smoky cloud. "Never send a man..." coughed Jinx, managing a little smile. Then her smile dropped.

The dust cloud exploded with a howl as the robot flew through and landed among them. It swung a massive arm, catching Jinx in the chest with a freight-train blow and throwing her across the room. She caught sight of Shimmer raising her hands against the metallic creature before bone-jarring impact carried Jinx through a glass case of weaponry on the far wall. Pain sliced through her costume, drawing blood on jagged glass as Jinx slid down. Then her vision succumbed to swimming black.

Several seconds screamed by before Jinx found her eyes again, awaking to pure chaos. Mammoth had risen to his feet only to lock himself into a punch-drunk stalemate with the robot; their hands quivered, laced against one another above their heads. Mammoth struggled to focus on his foe's featureless face with gritted teeth. Shimmer's legs protruded limply from another display case away from the face-off. And behind them, Psimon stood in the doorway, his hands at his forehead as he scowled at the figure and grunted.

"Psimon!" Jinx slurred, rising from the broken case. Glass jangled to her feet from the bloodied tears in her uniform. "What's going on?"

His eyes clenched. "It isn't working. She doesn't have any fear I can manifest. It's like she's pure rage!"

Jinx tried to push her thoughts through a layer of cotton. "Baran said that the robot ate the girl. What—"

Crackling bone heralded Mammoth's scream as his hands buckled and bent. He bowed in pain to the robot before its knee knocked his jaw. Jinx could barely hear Psimon over Mammoth's roar. "She **is** the robot!" the wisp of a man shrieked.

A furious howl cut Jinx's next question short. She looked to the cry's source and found Shimmer back on her feet. The air around her rippled as she turned her hands toward their metallic attacker, and then lifted them to the ceiling above. "She's gonna be paste in about three seconds," she said through her teeth.

The ceiling snapped and popped as it darkened into lead, its molecules bending to Shimmer's will. A circle of ceiling groaned under its new weight before it broke free and fell from the rest of the structure. The robot looked up in time to take three tons of fresh lead to the chin, vanishing beneath the enormous disc. Thunder cracked and bucked the room, throwing everyone to their feet as the disc thumped to the floor, rattled, and fell still.

Shimmer stepped forward with a vicious sneer, her hands dancing before her as though rearranging matter by hand. The lead disc bubbled and oozed into a shapeless mass that engulfed the spot where their foe had stood. Before the rest of her team could rise, Shimmer willed the metal glop solid again, trapping the robot beneath a suffocating shell of titanium.

"So much for the warm-up," crowed Shimmer. She blew imaginary smoke from her fingertips as her comrades gathered around the lump of a coffin. Together, they stared down where the robot-girl lay entombed, and shared a quiet moment of triumph in the ruins of the Titans' trophies.

Psimon rubbed at his brain case, abashed. Never before had he failed to summon a person's fear to defeat them. He had sensed delicious fear from the girl in the bedroom, enough to drown her twice over. But her transformation had erased all thought and emotion from her mind, save for a terrible rage. "She got the drop on us," he said lamely, exchanging looks with Mammoth.

Annoyance creased Jinx's face. "I don't want to hear it," she snapped. "Mik, get back to work. We've had enough delays for one day."

As they began to disperse, a quiet hum drew their eyes back to the metal mound. They stepped back as a blotch of white heat blossomed and spread on the mound's surface. The heat bubbled and then burst with a shrieking stream of brilliant bolts. The air burned as white fire cut a staccato path across the mound from the inside. Molten metal sprayed, forcing the five back another step as the mound burst apart. The robot-girl stood from her would-be coffin, its heaving shoulders dripping with liquid metal, and leveled her scowling visor upon them with a snarl.

Jinx summoned pure chaos to her hands as her comrades spread out. Their plan derailed, she found herself with an abundance of frustration and a convenient target on which to vent it. "Little girl," she growled, "You just stepped light-years out of your league."

The robot-girl roared and charged forward.

* * *

Green, gloved fists hammered into Slade's defense at speeds that rendered them little more than emerald blurs. Their knuckles tested every avenue possible to the split-colored mask, looking for a way to break the frozen grill and fearsome glower it held. Each punch came back without result, with only a growing ache to show for their efforts. 

"Come now, Robin," Slade purred as he draped an arm behind his back, "Where is all that metahuman spunk I witnessed at our last encounter?" His other arm flashed in defense of Robin's assault, brushing the teen's punches and kicks aside.

Robin wished he could answer that for himself. He lashed out with a kick that used to break steel I-beams in half. Slade stopped his boot with a forearm and laughed.

"You threw a motorcycle at me last time. Now you can barely lift your arms." Slade backhanded Robin hard, spinning him to the tar paper in a daze. As Robin struggled to rise, Slade drew a long knife from his belt. He caught the light of the afternoon sun and reflected it into Robin's eye. "What a pity," he said.

He raised his knife to plunge it deep into Robin's tunic, and instead reeled as a matched pair of lilac boots slammed into him from behind. The blow launched him across the roof and into the low wall rimming the building's edge. Concrete cracked as his armor absorbed most of the blow, leaving him stunned instead of dead.

"My powers function gloriously!" Starfire shot at Slade, and then helped Robin to his feet. The glow faded from her eyes as she turned them to Robin's growing bruises. "What has happened to you, Robin? Your strength has waned considerably."

It was the most attention she'd shown him in weeks, but Robin couldn't pause to enjoy it. "Bird bolts are gone, too," he said. Neither of them made note of how heavily he leaned on Starfire's arm, but both of them fretted in silence. He couldn't be certain, but Robin felt weaker than before his close encounter, as though something actively sapped his strength. Without his powers to counter it, the potent tranquilizers in his system made it feel as though he moved through thick, fuzzy molasses.

Starfire's grip lingered a second too long. She broke her gaze from his scowl and looked back to Slade. "It matters little," she announced to the villain shambling to his feet. "We have everything we need to vanquish Slade."

"All this extraterrestrial interference wearies me, Robin," Slade said. "Let's find something to keep your little friend busy."

"I am perfectly content to—"

Slade pulled a short, fat tube from the back of his belt and leveled it at the Titans in one smooth motion. The barrel flared, and a rocket blurred from its mouth. Robin and Starfire jumped apart for the rocket to roar through the space between them, and then traded disbelief before turning back to Slade.

Green eyes narrowed, glowing once more. "Your aim has failed you," Starfire said.

A distant explosion disputed her claim and spun both Titans around. They watched wisps of conflagration fade from the tail rotor of one of the police helicopters that had circled incessantly since their arrival. Its perimeter path faltered as the helicopter spun out of control, dancing through the air without direction.

"Starfire...!" Robin shouted.

He hadn't time for another barked order; Starfire shot into the air, trailing emerald light as she left Robin on his own. The Teen Wonder turned back to Slade and swallowed his apprehension. His tranquiled mind burned with anger. He drew in a silent breath and tried to extinguish its fire; anger clouded judgment; anger was the fuel, not the compass.

His anger waned. His symbiote's swelled. His limbs grew more leaden.

Slade approached with a ponderous gait. "Thinking of running, Robin?" he said.

Robin drew his stub of a staff from his belt. A flick of the wrist snapped it to full size as he slid into stance, raising its end to block Slade's path. "Stop wishing out loud, Slade," he said, trying desperately to hold his staff steady. "It's embarrassing."

* * *

The empty Vehicle Bay rocked with the echoing blast of a comet smashing through its ceiling. The comet flailed her limbs about before crushing the concrete floor into a crater the size of a small house. Dust plumed from her impact. Shuddering seized the floor. 

When all fell silent, the comet awoke. Pain lurked in every extremity she could still feel, making the trek to her hands and knees a slow torture. "What's going on?" she asked in a tinny voice. "What...?"

Tek was no stranger to waking with confusion. Memory had failed her for her entire existence, and so she applied herself to analyzing her surroundings and her situation. She stared at her armored fingers first, letting her gaze spill out into the Tower's glorified garage. The last howl of the beast lurking in her psyche still stung in her ears.

"I was in a fight?" she asked herself.

Violet energy struck Tek's side and threw her into the air. Tek tumbled back to the concrete with all the thunder of kitchen cookware being dumped onto the floor. As she rolled to an unceremonious stop, she caught sight of the doorway leading into the Tower gaping open, with five figures stretched across its width.

"You've got a lot of luck, girlie," Jinx called. More hex spilled from her fingertips as she added, "Too bad for you, none of it's good."

Tek managed to stand by the time Mammoth charged her. She screamed and caught his punch against crossed forearms. Mammoth's next punch came too quickly to stop, and gonged against her jaw. Even armored, she staggered under the blow, watching stars nova in her vision.

"You're strong, metal girl," Mammoth said. His voice was almost lost amidst the ringing of her ears. "But under all that armor, you're still a lightweight."

His kick struck her mid-stomach. The armor across her chest buckled and bowed in, transferring the jackhammer force from his boot directly into her. Tek flew back and clamped down on her throbbing stomach, feeling it lurch as she fell to earth once more; if she vomited inside her helmet, she would drown. She choked her bile back in time to spy Mammoth's shadow spill over her.

A burst of will opened her forearms, releasing twin weapons into readiness. Tek swung them up blindly and let fly with a stream of white fire. Mammoth backpedaled, losing several chunks of hair in his retreat. The burning smell emboldened Tek as she rose anew, lifting her still-smoking cannons after him. "Who's a lightweight?" she stammered.

Blinding heat pierced her brain, answering her question with her own shriek. She dropped to her knees and clutched her helmet. Dimly, she saw Psimon approach her through the tears in her eyes. His visible brain throbbed as he lowered his hand. A smile spread beneath his hooked nose. "Maybe I can't rely on your fear," he said, pausing to watch her writhe. "But it seems a psychic spike works just fine on you."

Thousands of volts arced into Tek as Gizmo skirted the corner of her vision. He cackled atop his metal-legged perch as another weapon in his endless arsenal poured pure electricity into her. "Let's not forget about that pretty packaging," he said. Tek couldn't see Gizmo's rude gesture through the flashing alerts in her armor's heads-up display. Her skull blazed and her body seized, collapsing her onto the floor.

Tek felt both agonies cease. She drew a half-gasp before Mammoth picked her up bodily and slammed her to the floor. His fists drove her deeper into the shattering concrete, crushing her armor one centimeter at a time. The only inheritance from whatever previous life she'd forgotten began to compact around her into a coffin.

Pale hands pushed Mammoth aside. Three or more of Jinx hovered over Tek, seen through her fractured visor. Tek struggled to breathe, only to lose her efforts to another shriek as Jinx cut through her armor with crackling hex. The pink magic drilled between the metal joints and attacked Tek directly, frying her nerves. "Who's small potatoes now, Titan?" she spat.

Muted gurgles escaped the crushed grill of her helmet as Jinx stepped back. Shimmer appeared briefly above before winking and waving her hands. The villainess vanished behind a wall of liquid that supplanted the air, the stench of which infiltrated Tek's ruined filters. Gasoline. Gizmo joined Shimmer in looming over Tek. He snapped his fingers, producing a miniscule flame in his palm.

"Barbecue, anyone?" asked Gizmo. Then his sneer became a scowl at the rumbling sound that grew steadily over the whisper of his flame. He shot a look to Mammoth and snapped, "Jeez, Baran, it was a joke. We're not actually gonna eat her, so keep that bottomless pit of your quiet."

Mammoth placed his hands over his stomach with a confused expression. "It isn't me, Mik," he said.

Their collective glare wandered about the Bay. The enormous entrance provided the bass growl they had mistaken for Mammoth's hunger. It began to tremble in its frame, shaking worse with every passing second. The five glanced between each other, none of them daring to voice their thoughts for fear of making them manifest. Jinx felt her headache return as she listened to the last of their carefully honed plan slip down the tubes.

"The hell?" muttered Psimon.

The five recoiled as one as the three feet of solid door bellowed with impact from the opposite side. Steel bubbles expanded in its surface, glowing hot with unseen fire before the entire door flew from the frame on wings of thunderous flame. Another thunderclap tore into their ears as the metal slab struck ground, revealing its attacker and stunning the invaders all at once.

"No way..." Shimmer gaped.

The CUTTER flew into its Vehicle Bay, an oblong and armored avenger. Black streaks shrieked in its wake as its rubber-coated treads locked. It screeched to a halt, tilting a moment before rocking back down. Panels slid open on its side, revealing racks filled with rockets that swiveled around. Turrets atop its beetled back swung down and bathed Tek's attackers in blue-white buildup of impending death.

A hatch appeared in the CUTTER's seamless side. It lowered into a gangway, with four teenaged heroes waiting at its top. Cyborg stood at the fore with arms folded across his armored chest. He glowered at Jinx. "How do people keep getting past my security?" he grumbled.

Beast Boy's knuckles cracked into his palm. He caught sight of the broken figure their five home invaders gathered around, and felt fresh anger bubble in his blood. "Let's show them what happened to the last yahoos that crashed our pad," he said, before ballooning into a frothing bull.

* * *

"Do you see what happens, Robin?" 

Kneeling at Slade's feet, Robin couldn't answer. He hurled his stomach onto the tar paper ground, clutching the throbbing memory of Slade's knuckles at his stomach. The hairline cracks in his mask had grown, fracturing everything he saw in two. He coughed hard, spitting up the last of breakfast. A wave of smug followed the nausea, originating from mid-chest, irrepressible.

Slade's knee caught Robin on the bridge of his nose. "Time and again you delay me, boy," he said to the sprawling teen. "You hound me as the ant might a leviathan, nipping at what you do not understand."

Blood trickled from Robin's lips. "You're mixing your metaphors," he slurred to the dancing colors of his vision. Steel fingers wrapped around his throat and lifted him bodily in a single motion. Robin gagged and pulled at the hand, staring at the two Slades his mask refracted.

"But do you have the decency to offer a real challenge?" Slade crushed Robin's reply into a squeak. "No. Tell me, Robin, why should I bother? Where is my challenge?" Unable to speak, Robin lifted a limp hand and pointed into the sky behind Slade. His captor refused the sad ploy at first, but turned his head at the sound of a rising roar combined with the whistle of a blade through the air.

Starfire soared through the air, dragging behind her the torn rotor of her rescued helicopter. The half-ton of angled steel didn't slow her in the slightest as she dove at the pair with eyes ablaze. Her mouth split for an animal howl that startled even Slade's stony nerves, and she swung the massive blade at them both without hesitation.

Slade tossed his Boy Hostage aside and rolled the opposite way. Starfire's rotor arced into the roof, carving a line where Slade had stood and continuing into the air. The alien powerhouse swung the blade full circle and rotated it, bringing its flat down on Slade with all her might. Slade hopped back and felt the blade blast air into his eye as it passed a palm's width from his mask. Rooftop particles blasted his armor on impact with scratches and dings, infuriating Starfire.

Robin lurched up, half-blind and sickly. "Starfire," he shouted to the purple streak in the sky, "Form up! We can—"

Slade's foot hooked into Robin's jaw and silenced him. Both spun full circle, one by choice, one unable to muster strength one enough to match a kitten. Their eyes met for an instant of shared contempt before Slade drove forward and thrust his boot into Robin's solar plexus, driving all breath out of the teen and knocking him back. Robin struck the low wall hard and flipped. He felt gravity's claws drag him into the open air.

"Robin!" Starfire watched him tumble over the edge. With only a gasp for pause, she dove after him, calling upon every ounce of speed she possessed. Her arms stretched to catch hold of a leg or an arm, or whatever part of him presented itself first.

So absolute was her focus that she never saw the thin black noose that looped around her neck until it lashed her back with suffocating force. The cord yanked Starfire onto the bank rooftop, where she bounced and gagged at Slade's boot heel. She had just gotten her thumbs hooked beneath the noose when a wave of electricity leapt from the cord into her body. She screamed and froze, helpless against the crackling red assault.

"I had saved this for Robin and his powers," Slade told her. He rolled her over with a rough boot and braced his stance against the back of her neck. His whole body twisted as he yanked the noose hard, cutting her windpipe closed. "But I suppose this works as well," he said.

**To Be Continued**


	27. Fearsome Five: Strive

* * *

**Teen Titans**  
**Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Fearsome Five**: _Strive_

"Let's break down your options," said Cyborg.

He and his teammates stood at the foot of his latest creation, the tremendous treaded tank CUTTER, and stared down the five super villains that had invaded their tower and beaten their houseguest. Tek lay among the invaders, unmoving, her armor battered and doused in what Cyborg's nose told him was gasoline. Cyborg had no love for the brain-addled charity case, and had made no secret of it. But seeing her broken at the feet of Jump City's resident B-listers sparked a rare kind of anger in him.

"Option one," Cyborg continued, "You give up and tell us why you broke into our house."

Gizmo sneered at the steely bravado, rising higher on the mechanical stalks that grew from his pack. Energy danced in his gloves, aching to fry every implant in the man-machine's useless cadaver. "And what's option two, meat puppet?" he snarled.

The goggled sneer he wore vanished as the CUTTER sprouted new weaponry; laser arrays grew between its massive plasma turrets while the tank's undercarriage produced a row of stun cannons. The rocket racks in the tank's side whirred and primed, sliding three dozen rockets forward so their sharp red tips protruded from the great blocks.

"Option two is a lot like option one," Cyborg told them. "It just has a lot more hero-on-villain violence before the giving up part."

Terra stood with deepening scowl at the side of a snorting green bull. "You should think hard," she told them. "I think option two has a lot to offer, all things considered."

Surprise squeezed free of Jinx's narrowing eyes, making room for pure hatred to light the pink in her irises. She motioned her bristling company back with a gesture, and then folded her arms across her willowy chest. "Look at the big, bad heroes getting all puffed up. What are you going to do?" she taunted.

Pure shadow shot from Raven's hands as answer. She willed her soul self into great claws with which to snatch the witch up and away. Jinx leapt back and slung a wave of hex at her feet where the crumpled Tek lay. The layer of gasoline covering Tek's armor ignited, flaring with light and heat enough to make the Titans flinch. Raven balked her attack, and then spread her soul claws into a blanket of black, which she used to smother the worst of the flames.

Cyborg led the charge forward into the searing heat. His left hand split open and belched chemical foam over the live pyre, transforming it into a blackened lump for the team to gather around. The steely teen hardly noticed that Jinx and her crew had vanished back into the Tower as he scraped uselessly at Tek's clanking skin. "Hey," he called. "Hey, kid. C'mon, say something!"

Soul self slithered between Cyborg's hands. He slid back in surprise and watched Raven use her power to rip the visor and grille from Tek's helmet. The sooty face beneath coughed and gasped, slick with tears that poured from wild, wide eyes. Tek vomited black smoke up in their faces and sucked in desperate air, trying with all her might to slither out the chink in her helmet. "I gotta tried to stop out couldn't can't breathe pushed me fire!" she screamed breathlessly. "Brain guy in my pink magic little machine punch shouting leather—"

"Easy!" said Cyborg. "Easy." Metal scratched metal as he uselessly stroked the side of her helmet. He stared down at her, locking his gaze on her eyes until the bouncing pupils within finally locked in on him. "Slow down, kid. Are you okay?"

Tek's breathing slowed to just shy of hyperventilation. "Can't move," she gasped. "Armor's fried."

Cyborg dug his fingers beneath the edge of her armor, lifting her off the ground. "We're gonna get you to Medical and—"

"No!" she cried. "The little green guy has a-a thing in the Evidence Room. It's like a-a-a bomb or something. You have to stop it!"

She yelped as Cyborg let her rattle back onto the concrete. Cyborg stood and shot a glare back at his team. "Everyone pick a different route to the Evidence Room. First one to find them calls. Don't take 'em on alone."

Terra placed a hand on Tek's chest as she knelt at the girl's side. She glared up at Cyborg and asked, "Are you _gonna_ wait if you find 'em first?"

He glared back, but didn't answer. "Titans, go!" he barked, and charged back for the door to the Tower.

As Terra and Raven flew on his heels, Beast Boy brushed at the smudge on Tek's face with a tender thumb. His heart fluttered as she coughed hard enough to rattle her armor. "You gonna be okay?" he asked.

"I tried..." she squeaked. "I tried to..."

"Take a breather," Beast Boy said, stroking her forehead. She could only track him with her eyeballs as he vanished behind the edge of her broken visor. "We'll take care of the rowdy houseguests," she heard his fading voice say.

Everything below her neckline throbbed as she stared up at the ceiling. Burning rubber overwhelmed her nose, probably from the slagged remains of her suit. Tears stung in her eyes. "Sure," she muttered.

* * *

Death had never been an abstract to Timothy Drake. From an early age, young Tim had been made to understand that his sickly mother could not, and would never, come home. His father had been blunt and clumsy in his choice of words, but Tim had gotten the gist of the idea. That lesson had reared its ugly head again when, years later, he found himself in the fabled Batcave, listening to the Dark Knight tell Tim of his father's final fate. Death was no idea to ponder or eventuality to fear; it was the driving force of Tim's life.

The first time Tim had donned the uniform, it had been out of vengeance against death in the guise of the terrible Two-Face. With each time after, Tim did so in defiance of death. If his time would be as limited as his parents' lives had been, he would do the most he could with his life. Which is why, as he fell twelve stories to his death, Robin felt no fear of the fate waiting for him below. He felt instead a piercing sense of regret and frustration.

Windows crawled by him, glistening in the late sun as he drifted down. Time moves agonizingly slow, giving Robin ample time to reflect on his failings, both physical and tactical. Those, too, came to him at a snail's pace, letting him relive each moment of failure in excruciating detail.

_You relied on your powers instead of your brains,_ his mind told him in Batman's gruff voice. _You thought you could handle Slade on your own. Even with Starfire's help, you were beaten like a rug._

It wasn't his fault. How could he know his symbiote would fail him?

_You never rely solely on a single tool, especially one that burrows into your chest._

No. No?

_No,_ a new voice told him. _That isn't your problem._

His cape fluttered around him as Robin plummeted through the open air. Plenty of time for him to answer the voice.

_You rely on your teammates and pills_, the voice sneered at him. _You have everything you need, but you hesitate. Deliberate._

Robin pictured Slade on the rooftop, undoubtedly making short work of Starfire. The villain never hesitated. His calculating nature allowed him to plan every fight in advance, giving him the freedom to move and act at once with certainty. As the Apprentice, Robin had witnessed Slade's hatred and anger firsthand, both of which the villain kept reigned and controlled, and both of which gave Slade incredible power.

_"You and I are one and the same, Robin,"_ Slade had once told him.

Blood boiled in Robin's veins at the memory. Alike they may be, but Robin refused to believe he would ever become Slade.

_But his anger gives him power._

Rage clutched Robin's stomach, twisting it violently. "Yes," he whispered. The world around him spun slower still. His fluttering cape fell below him, away from his body, hanging down from his neck as it should have.

_That power is yours. Take it._

Robin righted himself and stepped onto the air. His gloves creaked and crackled with crimson heat. His cracked lenses burned red as they turned back toward the rooftop high above him. "Slade," he growled.

* * *

Starfire couldn't breathe. She could hardly see and hear, and moved only at great cost to the muscles that screamed beneath her smoldering skin. Sandpaper roofing scraped her knees as she writhed, trapped in the electric grip of Slade's noose. Her fingers bled between her neck and the metal cord, the only things keeping her head attached to her body. 

"You're beginning to black out," Slade explained to her with surgical calm. He could feel her spine creak beneath his boot as he yanked harder on the metal line. A heavy box on his belt fed copious amounts of electricity through the line, sapping Starfire's will to fight. "Every muscle in our body is locked. Every nerve ending is on fire. I imagine it's quite the unpleasant way to die. If you're lucky, you'll black out before it kills you."

True to his words, Starfire watched her swimming vision shrink at its edges. She tried to scream but couldn't, pushing hardly a squeak past her cracked lips. It hardly mattered. By now, Robin had struck the ground. She could picture the broken sack that was his body, ling prone in a crater of its own making, never to move again.

Everything she'd been too proud and stubborn to tell him flooded back to her. The unspoken words filled every part of her with such righteous fury as to spark novas in her eyes. Starfire's hands burned through Slade's cord with a brilliant burst of emerald. The circuit broke at once, ending her electrocution. She caught the broken cord and spun in place, leveling her burning gaze with Slade's widening eye. The brief second of surprise she saw in his mask sparked grim satisfaction in her sorrow before she jerked the cord. Her alien strength lifted Slade into the air and swung him to the other side of the rooftop, where he pounded a fresh dent into the tar paper.

"You killed Robin," she uttered as Slade rose unsteadily. Emerald tears drifted from her eyes, disappearing into the air. Starfire crushed the tears back and continued, "You killed my...you..."

Standing, Slade cradled his shoulder. His voice remained even, regardless of the odd angle his arm hung at. "A broken heart is the least of your concerns, my dear."

Her eyes opened again, blinding in their naked hatred. "My only concern is to make you pay for what you have done," she retorted.

"I assure you, I'd do far worse to him if he were still here." Slade's good hand glided past his utility belt. When it snapped out at his side, it sparked with more of the same crimson electricity. "A pity I could only kill him once," he lamented.

"**SLADE!**"

The shout split the air, freezing both warriors in mid-strike. They followed the sound to the roof's edge with their eyes. A blur of crimson and green rose over the roof, flying a banner of gold and trailing scarlet light. The blur coalesced above them into the outline of a teenaged angel of fury, who bore his scowl down upon the injured villain.

Starfire watched him hang in the sky, her jaw slackened. "Robin?" she whispered.

Slade stared as well with a narrowing eye. "This is unexpected."

Another scream rattled windows all around them as Robin dove at Slade with raised fists. He slammed into Slade at blinding speed and knocked the villain into the air. Robin soared ahead of the tumbling Slade and swung about, trailing his metal boots into a double-kick that crushed the front of Slade's armor. The blow blew Slade down through the roof, puckering the black surface as Slade crashed through floors beyond and below.

Robin didn't wait for Starfire's stammered question to finish. He followed Slade down, cutting through the dusty air, through jagged holes left in each floor of the bank, until he reached the lobby. Broken marble floor waited for him at the bottom, wheezing ribbons of powdered stone. No body lay at the crater's center as Robin though it would.

"Slade!" he bellowed, flipping upright in midair. His cracked mask scanned the darkened lobby for his quarry. "Where are you?"

As his eyes passed a row of pillars, he caught sight of a flash that filled his vision. A rocket leapt from the darkness and struck his face, consuming his head in liquid fire. Robin reeled back and fell, trailing conflagration as he struck the floor.

Slade stepped from the shadows and lowered his gauntlet. Wisps of smoke trailed from its spent barrel. "Right here, Robin," he told the unmoving Titan.

His hidden smile fell as Robin twitched. His eye widened as Robin rose to his feet, staggering only a moment. The teen's collar was scorched black, and his face held traces of charcoal. The last of his mask peeled away in barbecued chips, revealing a blazing red scowl.

"How many ways can I say it?" Robin asked the shocked villain in a growl. "You'll never win."

Ribbons of smoke trailed behind Robin as he marched toward Slade. Freed of the mask, his eyes burned with naked murder that startled even as seasoned killer such as Slade. Scarlet light bled form Robin's irises and swallowed his eyes, making them hellish beacons that lit the lobby.

Slade remembered himself and composed his posture as Robin drew before him. His spent gauntlet clattered to the floor, useless. "So what happens now, Robin? Are you going to take me to jail?"

The light in Robin's eyes flared and narrowed. He clenched his fists, trembling as red fire consumed his gloves. Anger bounded through every part of him, growing stronger as it fed upon itself, blazing like wildfire at the bemused twinkle in Slade's eye.

The terrible desire shuddered through Robin's body. It was a hunger Slade recognized at once. "Really, Robin," he said in mock-surprise. "This is an interesting twist, isn't it? But the question must then be, do you have what it takes to go through with it?" He leaned down, purring in Robin's ear, "Do you have what it takes to kill?"

Slade's eye widened at the sound of shrieking metal. He jerked forward, sliding down Robin's arm as Robin's fist exploded out the back of his armor. The Teen Wonder cradled Slade for a second, feeling the slick fluid creep down his arm and soak his sleeve. Pungent, coppery death swam in his nostrils as he leaned in toward Slade's armored ear.

"Yes," Robin hissed, and then knifed his free hand through Slade's neck.

The heavy helmet tumbled free from its shoulder perch with a shower of sparks. Wires shimmied with broken circuits of power atop the holed torso, spraying Robin with harmless specks of light. Robin pulled his arm from the armored chest and let the automaton drop. He followed its arc to the floor with a disgusted look. All this time, it had been a fake. Slade hadn't been interested enough to kill him in person.

But he had killed Slade. Or he would have, given the chance. And some part of Robin, nearly lost beneath the sea of rage bubbling inside him, felt afraid.

Because that kind of ferocity no longer came as surprise to him.

"Robin!" Starfire's cry barely preceded her from the hole in the ceiling. She shot into the lobby, trailing green fire, cradling starbolts in cocked fists. Her alien fire flickered out as she saw Robin covered in hydraulic fluid next to the smoldering heap of Slade at his boot. Robin stood with his back to Starfire, his cape heavy and dripping with mechanoid blood. The dark fluid froze her heart. "Robin," she whispered, floating down to him, "Are you all right?"

The soft question broke the spell Slade's robot held over him. He turned, quelling the tense violence in his chest, and said, "I'm fine."

Hope sparked in Starfire when she saw that Robin's mask had burned away, leaving only a light depression in his skin as evidence of its passing. But that hope dashed to shards upon the scarlet fire stretched across Robin's eyes, dropping her shoulders. She could see nothing of his eyes. "Oh, she said," forcing her eyes from the livid mask. "That is...good."

Robin hardly noticed the glow engulfing his eyes, and did not notice Starfire's disappointment. He left the Slade wreckage behind him as he rose unsteadily into the air. IT took a moment to find his balance, and would have been comical were he not defying gravity by way of sheer, concentrated fury. Once lofted, he looked back at Starfire and said, "Let's go. There's still trouble at the Tower."

Starfire stepped into the sky to follow him up and out the hole. She faltered a moment, losing the joy she needed to harness her flight. "Of course," she murmured.

* * *

Cyborg threw the stairwell door off its hinges and barreled through, thundering down the hall as quickly as his legs would carry him. The sub-cognitive systems regulating his body kept his artificial heart pumping at an even, slightly elevated rate; intellectually, he felt grateful for this advantage, for it meant he wouldn't tire or overtax his body without warning; but he would have given a great deal to feel a cold sweat on his brow, or a pounding bass rattle his chest. The absence of either made him question whether he was too brave to fear the expanded Troika's invasion, or too stupid to feel the appropriate terror.

The empty hallway swallowed him whole, guiding him down and around until he reached the juncture where the Evidence Room lay open and destroyed. Fragments of his precious Tower lay strewn across the floor. He picked up a broken faceplate that mirrored his—a remnant of his time with Fixit—and turned it over in his hands, growing angrier by the second.

Movement from down the corridor drew Cyborg's arm up and into a cannon. He leveled it at a wide-eyed Terra, who wielded a condensed ring of dirt pulled from the carpet. The floating dirt angled itself into a spear at the behest of her glowing eyes before she recognized Cyborg and grabbed the spear from the air.

"Did you see...?" asked Terra.

Cyborg shook his head, mechamorphing his sonic cannon back into a hand. "They could be anywhere else in the Tower," he said, sweeping his gaze across the hall. A convenient gap torn in the wall let him see a small column of technology seated in the Evidence Room that didn't belong among their other trophies.

The elevator double-doors parted, revealing an avian construct of pure black and a green velociraptor within. They poured forth as one, reshaping themselves into humanoid forms, and joined their teammates in the hall. Beast Boy crouched low at Raven's side and scratched at the dusty floor. "So, we go find them?" he asked. "Or maybe we turn security back on and let it—"

Lilac light leapt from the wall behind them, enveloping Cyborg from head to toe. The metaphysical chaos played havoc across his systems, dropping him to his knees with a choked scream as the vocal implants in this throat shorted out.

Ever the professionals, his teammates wasted no time in turning on the source of his attack, but saw only a blank wall. Before they could unravel the mystery, a beam of white light hammered Raven in the chest, blasting her back through the opposite side of the corridor. She hung from the wall as more crackling pink spell tore into Beast Boy. Terra had just enough time to expand her stone spear into a circular shield to block an enormous fist that extended from the featureless wall.

The wall rippled like water, and then melted away. Five faces appeared behind the lowering curtain, leering at the heroes with malevolent mirth. Psimon lowered his hands at the back of the formation. His comrades were lined up before him, chomping at the bit to finish what they'd started.

Jinx caught Cyborg's eye as she stepped forward. "Nice illusion, Psimon," she said, grinning at the unwillingly silent Titan. "Now, everybody pick your favorite. I don't think we'll get this opportunity again."

"Not if we do it right," grumbled Mammoth. One quick step forward carried him halfway across the hall, where he met Terra and her earth shield with a smirk. His fists came down in a double-handed swing, crushing against Terra's shield with thunderous force. The shield held. The floor didn't. Terra shrieked as the blow sent her down through the floor, smashing through levels below. Mammoth had time for another chuckle before he stepped into the hole she'd left and fell away.

Beast Boy's cry became a feral snarl midway through his transformation. As a jade tiger, he spanned the distance to the fresh hole in a single leap, and stared down after Terra and Mammoth. Another leap coiled in his haunches when he felt tremendous impact on the side of his skull. Stars lit his eyes as he tumbled aside, reverting and rolling across the floor.

His vision cleared upon a shapely pair of legs strutting toward him. Beast Boy's gaze followed the leather-clad legs up to the face of their owner, a ginger-haired teen with no apparent regard for modesty. The leather strips binding her chest lifted as she drew a long, sensual breath over him. "Sorry, pre-pube," she said. "You've already got a date." The air between her hands crackled and thickened into a solid pipe of steel. She tapped it into her open palm gleefully. "Now pucker up."

Cyborg watched in helplessness as Shimmer laid into his best friend with the metal bar. His systems came back online one by one, rerouting past those that Jinx's sucker punch had damaged, but he still couldn't rise or speak. The immobility was made worse still when a quartet of metal legs stomped down around him, lowering a three-foot terror to block Cyborg's view.

"Hey, crud sucker," Gizmo said. He flashed a wicked grin and lifted a set of heavy gauntlets that hummed and sparked with naked electricity.

"Gizmo!" The sharp shout stopped Gizmo cold, and drew his glassy glare back at Jinx. She and Psimon strode up behind him as Gizmo lowered himself to the floor. "You need to finish arming the doodad," Jinx told him. She smiled at his grumblings as the puny techster stalked off on his own legs. Then she laughed aloud as Cyborg staggered to his feet. "Psimon, feed the Tin Man his own heart."

Surprise flashed briefly across Psimon's gaunt, hooked features. "I thought you'd save the head honcho for yourself," he said.

Cyborg shuddered as Jinx patted his cheek with a cool hand. He hadn't the strength yet to lift his arms, or he would have taken her head off her shoulders with one punch. "This loser's just a stand-in," she said, turning away. A quick glance at Raven hanging limply in the wall charted her new course. "Besides, I have something more fun in mind."

The last of Cyborg's strength came back in a rush of power. He ignored the triumphant message flashing in his eyes and swung his fist up, feeling the strange familiarity of his hand and forearm rearranging into a potent sonic cannon. A digital crosshairs slid up into his vision and rested between Jinx's bobbing tufts of hair. But as he powered up his cannon for a blast that would rattle Jinx's brain, Cyborg saw Psimon's tall, wiry body shimmer into existence, blocking the shot.

"Conceited and irate Jinx may be," said Psimon. "But she's calling the shots. You'll have to deal with me before you settle any grudges with her." His sneer blurred and reformed around Cyborg's punch, which passed through the bubbling brain under glass without effect. Another punch to the same effect clued Cyborg in too late as the visage of Psimon dissolved into nothingness.

Cyborg spun in place, scowling. "Holographic projections? Kids' stuff."

Three more of Psimon faded into existence. Each one paced before Cyborg, arms folded behind their backs, and grinned at him. "Nothing so trite," they assured Cyborg. "My powers are of the mind." A trio of hollow _clink_ sounds chimed in as they tapped their respective brain cases.

The Titan didn't bother to attack any of the projections. None of them registered on his sensors. "Half of my mind is machine," he snapped, already scanning the rest of the hall on a dozen different spectrums."

"Half of it isn't."

Cold fingers gripped his scalp from behind. Cyborg stiffened, suddenly unable to move. He watched the world around him melt into an inky void, and now felt the fear that had been missing earlier. Psimon's face leaned over his shoulder armor and pressed itself into Cyborg's. The two stood cheek-to-cheek as new shapes took form in the soundless, empty vacuum before them.

"This is your worst nightmare, Victor Stone," Psimon explained, watching the shapes as Victor did.

One shape coalesced into a large, amorphous yellow creature of tremendous size, oozing and pustulating with a sickening symphony of sounds. The creature moved as though torn from the confines of a lava lamp, bereft of features, language, or conscience. The other shape became that of a handsome woman dressed in a pristine lab coat, her exquisite features frozen in fear of the yellow blob towering over her. The woman tripped over her own feet and fell before the creature, screaming, helpless, as it drew closer to where she lay.

Psimon continued, fascinated by his power's projections: "Physically, you and I are still in your Tower, safe and warm. But it doesn't feel that way to you, does it?"

Cyborg couldn't speak. His systems functioned perfectly, but were frozen by a mind blank with horror as he watched the woman recoil from the very creature that had killed her just three years ago. Her scream rang just as he remembered it as the creature's glistening membrane began engulfing her. Chemical hisses accompanied her shrieks as steam and smoke rose from the creature's skin where it slurped over the woman's skin.

"Victor!" she screamed, clawing at the void beneath her. Her face twisted in agony as its beauty melted at the creature's touch. "Victor, why couldn't you save me? Why didn't you try?" she sobbed.

The lightest pressure pushed Cyborg to his knees. He hardly noticed; his eyes couldn't break away from the creature's horrifying meal. Psimon laughed as he lowered himself alongside Cyborg. "Why couldn't you, Victor?" asked Psimon. "Did you want her to die? Or did you simply lack the courage to help her?"

His gentle words barely reached Cyborg. The teen's lip quivered as he whispered, "Mom..." Tears poured freely from his remaining eye, tickling his skin on their way to his metal chin.

There was little left of his mother, but her screams continued, louder than before. Psimon swung around and entered the side of Cyborg's vision. One of his gnarled hands ran down the metallic side of Cyborg's face. "But the creature didn't stop with her, did it? And after, you did obtain the power you'd have needed to help her. Too late. Oh, the irony," said Psimon, cackling. His touch grew colder still, and pierced the steel plating of Cyborg's implants as though they were made of paper. "Let's finish what the creature started, shall we?"

Cyborg's silence broke for a tortured scream as he felt his bio-mechanics ripple and expand. The edges of his machinery chewed into his organic body, eating it alive and leaving gleaming, fresh metal in its place. He could feel the metal spreading across his face, and he howled in terrible, furious pain. His mother's ghostly wails paralleled his own as Psimon cackled in his face.

* * *

Soft wisps of air kissed Beast Boy's cheek as he ducked beneath a swing from an assailant he didn't recognize. Not that he'd have felt better about fighting a familiar face, but at least he'd have an idea of what to expect. She swung and danced around her conjured staff with impressive grace, lashing out with a flurry of kicks that would have buried his nose into his face if not for his preternatural speed.

"So," he said, "Haven't seen you around. You got a handle?"

She brought the staff down hard, just missing Beast Boy's head. The polished floor cracked beneath her blow and kicked up shards of tile. "Shimmer," she grunted.

Beast Boy backed away, moving out of her staff's reach. "Shimmer," he repeated. "Nice. That's a biblical name, right? Like Mary, or Delilah. You know: Michael begat Joseph, who begat Shimmer, who begat a great big headache for Beast Boy."

The staff in Shimmer's hand morphed into a long spear, which she hurtled at him with a grunt. Beast Boy shrank into a housefly and buzzed in uncontrolled flight as the vortex left by the spear stirred up the air. The spear sunk and quivered into the wall, providing a perch for the fly to land and revert on.

"Sweet power," Beast Boy said, perched on the end of the spear. He watched her tilt her hips and stare at him in irritation. The frustration made him smile. "For a second, I thought your shtick was running around in bondage gear." Eyeing her pale, slender figure and modest breasts, he added, "By the way, how's bulimia working for you? 'Cause you look like a good candidate for the 'Eat a Cheesecake and Get a Tan' program."

Shimmer offered up a forced smirk and a wave of her hand. The spear he sat upon melted into thick oil, which fell with him and coated the floor beneath his fall. Beast Boy's legs flailed beneath him before he landed on his backside. He rubbed the offended area as Shimmer strutted forward.

He hissed, rising carefully. "Okay, the cheesecake crack is still in beta testing. We'll work out the bugs together. If you could just tell me which part find most offens_ulkk_—"

Another gesture from Shimmer stole the words right out of Beast Boy's mouth. A gout of water replaced them, exiting Beast Boy in a choked grunt that brought him to his knees. He fell upon all fours and heaved water onto the tile, shuddering and vomiting everything within him into a stinking puddle. That puddle rippled as Shimmer's boots braved its muck.

"Finally," said Shimmer, sighing. She waved her hand again, and Beast Boy felt his chest swell with water once more. He coughed it all over her shoes in time to receive yet another round of water. "I never thought you'd shut up. But I guess having the air in your lungs transmuted into water will take the talk out of anybody." She leaned over, kissing the crop of green hair atop his head, and willed the desperate gasp in his throat to condense into clear, crystal water. "You're lucky," she told him. "It could have been acid, easy. But I think I'd rather watch you drown on dry land. It's much funnier. Don't you think so, funny guy?"

When she looked down again, she started back at the green porpoise lying at her feet. Its blowhole quivered and spat a geyser into Shimmer's face. Shimmer reeled back, sputtering as the green porpoise became humanoid and did the same. When Shimmer cleared her eyes, she faced a great green bear whose roar blew her hair dry. A sweep of its claw knocked her end over end.

Shimmer tumbled to a painful halt with her feet hanging over her head. "Oh, now you've done it," she snarled. "I am turning every drop of marrow in your body into mercury. Then I'm gonna sit here and watch you beg me to kill you quicker."

She struggled to her feet and dusted herself off furiously, savoring a daydream in which Beast Boy writhed and screamed in the throes of heavy metal poisoning. Then she looked up and met eyes with a wide-eyed ostrich. Its long, green neck bent, bringing its head level with hers.

"An ostrich?" she asked, laughing in his face. "That's it? Forget the mercury. I'll just whip up some secret spices, and we can have ourselves a cookout."

Beast Bird's leg lifted in a blur. His clawed foot hammered Shimmer in the chest, launching her twenty feet down the corridor. She bounced against a wall and, tumbling like a rag doll along the floor until she finally stopped, slumped over in the corner.

A beak became lips to blow a stuttered breath of relief. It turned into a coughing fit as the remnants of Shimmer's conjured water worked free from his lungs. "You're three gallons of crazy, leather lass. Lucky for me, you're plenty stupid, too." He wheezed a moment more, leaning on his knees. "Is there something about me? Why are all the crazy pretties crazy for me? You, Tek, Terra..."

His eyes went wide and his lungs froze. Without another second, he turned and ran back down the hall, thinking of the unconscious Shimmer only long enough to curse her for forcing him so far from the rest of the fracas. He fell forward onto compact cat's paws, becoming a cheetah, and raced back for the Evidence Room with a single name in his thoughts.

* * *

In the meantime, another girl further from Beast Boy's thoughts had just begun to wake. She hung from her hole in the wall, tangled in the folds of her navy blue cloak. Reality swam in her hooded eyes until a hard slap of pink chaos snapped her cheek to one side. Her eyes flew open, burning with twilight. They fell upon a pale and twisted smile hovering mere inches from her nose.

"Wakey-wakey, little bird," sang Jinx. She drew her hand back again, channeling hex across the space between her fingers. Another hard slap rocked Raven's world off its axis. She righted herself again as Jinx giggled and said, "It's time for you to be nevermore."

Raven groaned. "Poe jokes," she muttered.

Lilac hex stormed between Jinx's palms and then discharged into the wall. But Raven wasn't there to meet it. The chaos matrix tore the broken wall to shreds as a long shadow on the wall behind Jinx grew unnaturally dark. Raven stepped from the living shadow, safe and sound, if a little disoriented.

Whirling, Jinx lashed out with a wave of hex. It scythed through the air, forcing Raven to jump dimensions again or forever be departed from her legs. She reemerged a safer distance away, giving her as second to catch her breath while Jinx cartwheeled after her.

"'Port away, 'port away," Jinx sang and laughed. "Same old boring tricks, Raven. Next, you'll be throwing something at me with that creepy soul of yours."

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" The impossible dark of her soul self seized the brittle plaster. Jagged pieces of the wall rained down on Jinx. The corridor grew thick with dust and grit as Jinx surrounded herself in a nimbus of hex. Her magic vaporized the drywall attack, leaving Jinx unmarred and without so much as a bead of sweat for her effort.

Jinx's laugh set Raven's teeth on edge. "Predictable. I thought we could have a duel of the magics, Raven: the dark sorceress against the master of chaos magic. But all you use is that lame monster soul of yours. Where's the challenge?"

Chaos lit Jinx's hands on her approach, setting Raven's temper aflame. She withdrew her soul self from the walls, pulling it back into physical shell, and concentrated. "I don't use magic because I don't like magic," Raven told the grinning villain. Her eyes blazed.

The walls around Jinx began to melt and twist, this time without the soul self's assistance. Jinx yelped as the broken material all around her merged together into an endless sea of tentacles that reached out for her. Her magic flashed at the living constructs, blowing each one out of existence before they could wrap around her. Then the chaos matrices in her hands flickered out. She screamed and called upon her power, but no amount of will could spark the lilac entropy back into her hands. Something in the hallway willed it so. Without the protection of her magic, the rippling hallway converged upon her, wrapping around her limbs with unbreakable strength.

Unfelt winds billowed Raven's cloak back as her eyes burned white hot. She stepped forward into the raging sea of wall-tentacles. The flailing limbs parted for her approach, concentrating instead on the shrieking Jinx. "Magic isn't a super power," Raven said in a reverberating voice. Jinx didn't stop to listen as her gothic corset took on a life of its own and began swallowing her whole. "Magic," lectured Raven, "Is the application of willpower onto the fabric of reality by way of the spirit. Using the soul to make the mind's will manifest."

"You can't do this!" shrieked Jinx, before her corset grew over her mouth.

"Your soul is bleak, and your mind is unfocused," Raven's echoing voice continued. The volume of her tone rose as she did, lifting into the air on her nonexistent wind. "So all you can manage are a few sparks of chaos. Accelerated entropy. A parlor trick."

The tentacles pierced Jinx, bypassing her skin entirely and plunging deep into her soul. Jin howled beneath her living corset as the wave of tentacles drew her back against the wall and consumed her inch by inch. She tried to fight, but liquid ice poured over her spirit, sapping her of fight and strength. She tried to sob, but could not, and cried instead in helpless silence.

Raven drew close, willing Jinx to disappear into the wall with slow, deliberate force. "My soul is a twisted echo of my father's. My mind is burdened with hate. And when I tap into both..." She patted Jinx's slick cheek, savoring the pale girl's look of wide-eyed fear. "Well, you see what happens. So don't talk to me about magic, Jinx. Stick to parlor tricks."

With that, Jinx vanished beneath the surface of the wall, which drew back upon itself as though it had never moved at all.

The deed done, Raven's boots and cloak settled back to the floor, and her eyes faded to violet. She smoothed her cloak and turned back to the Evidence Room. There, a new sight rekindled her fury into an inferno, and she fought the urge to call upon the tapestry once more.

"Well played," Psimon said, giving Raven a nod. He stood behind the knelt Cyborg and wore an undeserved smile. One of his hands arched at the back of Cyborg's head. The glass bowl over his brain glinted beneath faltering lights.

Raven didn't give im a second glance. She watched Cyborg tremble as he stared off into space, his jaw slack and his skin clammy. Tears rained down his face from his remaining eye. Waves of pure sorrow emanated from him with such force that it nearly blinded Raven's unseen eyes. The anguish she felt in him made her voice shake as she said, "Let him go."

A low chuckle rolled from Psimon's throat, bobbing his Adam's apple. "Not a chance," Psimon said. He stretched his free hand toward Raven and curled it into a claw. The smug on his face grew. "But you're welcome to join him."

The pair met eyes throughout her approach. Each of her steps rang out in a sudden, eerie silence. She felt as though she were walking upstream through the emotional tempest Psimon forced through Cyborg. "What have you done to him?" she demanded.

"Your friend is mired in his worst nightmare. Would you like to see yours?"

Raven stopped cold. She could feel the touch of a master psychic mind upon her barriers, and watched his hawkish grin split wide. Her first impulse as to fight him with everything she had, to repel his invasive power lest she wind up like Cyborg. But then a much more devious thought struck her.

Psimon's will poured into her thoughts as she lowered every one of her psychic defenses. "Take your best shot," she told him.

* * *

The concrete basement floor rumbled beneath Terra as Mammoth touched down a dozen feet from where she lay. Powdered stone clung to her, the remnants of her shield, while a bass orchestra thrummed between her ears. Her body throbbed with the memory of Mammoth's attack even while the brute stomped toward her to refresh her memory.

"Hey, Skinny," said Mammoth. "You need a minute to catch your breath, or can I just crush you now?"

His sick joy ended in a yelp when the floor rumbled up and pinched his massive frame between two great sheaves of concrete. Mammoth roared and struggled, but the concrete molded itself to fit his shape. Seconds later, he could only move his neck, and watched impotently as Terra rose from the floor and dusted herself off.

Terra studied him through narrowed eyes, watching his feral rage transform into fear as he realized his plight. She willed the concrete tighter, and savored the whimper he choked out. "Such a toughie," she cooed.

"Suck it, hero," he snarled, and then yelped as his concrete restraints squeezed harder.

"Did you get it?" Her question startled him into silence. As he stared at her, dumbfounded, she repeated slowly, "Did you get it?"

His lip curled. "Yeah. Job's done. We just thought..."

Terra sneered. "You thought you'd stick around for a little fun."

"Yeah."

"You aren't paid to think, and for good reason." She regarded him a moment more, and then willed his concrete shackles to ease back, allowing him to draw a full breath. The concrete became brittle and crumbling at her glowing behest. "There. Now make it look real."

Mammoth looked confused as he sucked in greedy breaths. "What are you talking about? Crazy bitch..."

Her boot cracked against Mammoth's shin, drawing a wince through his gnashed teeth. "Hit me, you clod!" she shouted. "The Titans can't know yet, so you have to make it look—"

Concrete sprayed with a twist of his shoulders, freeing Mammoth from his brittle prison. His fist swung out in a haymaker the size of a small engine block and caught Terra upside her chin, and threw her into the air. Terra tumbled back to the floor in a tangle of limbs, her teeth rattling each time she skipped across the concrete. She stopped on her hands and knees, swayed, and collapsed onto her stomach.

Mammoth rolled his shoulders loose and glared. "Real enough for you, Blondie?" he grumbled.

"Terra!"

The cry from above drew Mammoth's glare up. He watched Beast Boy dropping through three stories' worth of holes into the cavernous basement, blurring into a falcon in mid-dive to control his descent. The Titan landed on human legs and charged at Mammoth, his brow wrinkled into what passed for fury on his cherubic face.

"Oh, what're you gonna do, Tiny?" asked Mammoth, braying a laugh at the changeling's charge. "Turn into a kangaroo and box me?"

The brutish taunt called back memories of two weeks before, when another behemoth had toyed with Beast Boy in that very basement. Beast Boy's blood burned with each step his spirited sprint carried him. At the last second, he jumped into the air, surprising Mammoth by remaining in human form. His feet sunk into Mammoth's chin and staggered the muscled mass back, while Beast Boy landed on his backside for the second time that day.

"Is that it?" asked Mammoth, rubbing his jaw. "That the best you got?"

Beast Boy glared at him, sparing only a split second to glance at Terra's unconscious form. "You strong types think you're the cat's pajamas," said Beast Boy. He rose from the floor, ignoring the aches all throughout his body. "You think bench pressing a bus is impressive? Try this."

Mammoth hadn't time enough to brace himself as a stegosaur's spiked tail swept him off the floor and slammed him into the ceiling. He stuck there a moment, a dazed prisoner of crumbling plaster, and then fell into the open air. The claws of a pterodactyl snatched him by his coppery hair and swung him about, throwing him into the far wall with cannon force. Mammoth had barely struck with bone-rattling speed before bull horns slammed into his back, driving him into the wall so hard that he plowed through the plaster and struck the armored core.

A green gorilla peeled him from the wall and flipped him overhead, slamming Mammoth headfirst into the concrete floor. Shrinking back into a humanoid, Beast Boy snarled and kicked Mammoth in his unmoving buttocks. "Let's go, tough guy!" he roared, eyes wild, pupils slitted like a cat's. "You wanna beat people up? Start with me!"

His outline blurred with intent to become that of a tyrannosaur when a brown glove clapped his shoulder, halting the transformation. Turning, he watched Terra's split lips dip with concern. "You got him, Gar," she said.

"Tara!" Beast Boy's hug nearly broke her in half. He buried his nose in her neck and murmured, "I was afraid you were..."

Terra patted his back uncertainly. The ferocity she'd seen in him a moment before made her knees tremble. "I've never seen you so angry," she whispered.

"I've never been so angry," he said into her shoulder. They parted so he could stare into her glossy blue eyes with pupils that had rounded back to normalcy. "I thought he'd...and there was so much I still had to tell you. I have to—"

"Shh." She touched his lips and smiled, this time for real. "I got the gist of it."

* * *

"Cyborg. Cyborg, wake up."

The rough voice pulled Cyborg from his nightmare with a gasp. He pitched forward, and would have struck the floor if not for the timely intervention of a hand the color of pale ash. Desperate breath rushed through his lungs as he looked wildly about, trying to sort the present from the past. "Where...?"

Raven stood above him. She locked his eyes with hers, and held him fast by his shoulder armor. "Whatever you saw, it wasn't real. It was a psychic construct."

His breathless question never finished as a series of muted cries drew his gaze to the far wall. There, Psimon huddled in a ball upon the floor. His eyes were locked open and dilated into black marbles. He rocked back and forth, mumbling and shrieking in a shrunken voice. A dark patch stained the front of his trousers.

"He tried the same trick on me," explained Raven. She stared impassively at their intruder, whom she'd never laid a finger on. "I guess he didn't like what he saw."

Cyborg didn't hear her. He rose and crossed the hall in two steps. His vision narrowed into a tunnel upon the quivering psychic. Psimon's large eyes fell upon Cyborg as he reached for the babbling villain's overcoat. Cyborg doubted that Psimon even saw him for all the waking nightmares he had borrowed from Raven. Either way, he didn't care.

With frightening calm, Cyborg grasped Psimon's glassy head and slammed it into the floor face first. Then he picked it up and did it again. And again. And again. He thought he heard himself scream, but the remembered shriek of his mother deafened him to anything else. It was only when his arm grew cold and stiff with the restraining touch of Raven's soul self that he stopped.

"That's enough," Raven said. She lowered her hands, and her soul self trickled out of his arm. Withdrawing back into her cloak, she said, "Put him down."

Cyborg glared first at the pulp of Psimon's face, and then at Raven's shadowed calm. "You have no idea..." he whispered, his fury choking him.

She shook her head. "I don't," she agreed. "But I won't let you kill him."

His gaze returned to Psimon, where the villain's wheezes blew bubbles in the blood and mucus of his face. Sickened, Cyborg let him fall to the floor, ignoring the blood on his hand, and brushed past Raven to stalk into the Evidence Room.

There, Gizmo worked furiously at the control panel of his barrel-sized device. When he saw Cyborg advance on him, the little gremlin rose upon a quartet of thick stalks and sprouted weapons aplenty. "Stay back, Gear Guts!" he shouted.

Cyborg didn't listen. He marched forward with murder glinting in his eye, silent and hulking. Gizmo panicked and opened fire, filling the air with laser light and sizzling heat. A great deal of the fire went wide and tore the remains of the room to shreds. Those shots that struck home bit into Cyborg's armor, chewing through vital circuitry and setting his remaining organics ablaze. Shrapnel burst from his back as the attacks burrowed through him. One shot holed his knee neatly, melting and fusing it into a useless club. But Cyborg did not slow.

Liquid shadow grasped Gizmo's weapons and tore them free of his pack, sending a feedback wave through his nervous system that blinded Gizmo to Raven's entrance. He yelped as Cyborg grasped his real legs and dragged him down, tearing the villain's metal legs from his pack with a single pull. "Let me go, scud muncher!" Gizmo screamed, kicking and thrashing.

Warning messages burned in Cyborg's vision. Black fluids poured from his wounds. His power levels dropped across the board. But his glare came down on Gizmo undiminished, and his hand crushed Gizmo's pack of wonders unopposed. "Game's over, squirt," he growled.

Gizmo sneered at his captors. "Not likely, Tin Butt. My Space-Time Implosion Device is active. In another two minutes, this refugee from a bowl of Alpha-Bits will be compacted into a lump the size of a baseball."

His cackle cut short as Raven's soul self pinched his lips shut. She looked up at Cyborg and asked, "Is that true?"

The room around Cyborg swayed, delaying his answer. "Maybe. I don't plan on taking any chances," he said.

"Correction." Jinx stood outside the wall's wreckage, bristling within a web of lilac energy. Fine white powder covered her from head to heel, and marked a trail from where she had blasted free from the walls. Her hands were obscured by pure pink chaos as she lifted them to bear on the two Titans. "You have no chance at all," she said.

Shimmer entered the scene beside Jinx, wearing pure fury on her lovely features. The air around her rippled, destabilizing at her whim. "I'll turn that metal of yours into swiss cheese, you robo-monkey," she snarled. "I'll make your blood into acid."

Hope sank further still as Mammoth's head and arms appeared over the lip of his crater. The villainesses smirked, but then scowled as the rest of Mammoth tumbled out of the hole, pushed by a giant hand crafted from concrete. A second hand of similar proportions lifted Terra back to the battlefield. A green parakeet perched on her shoulder as she stepped off the hand and atop Mammoth. "You'll be eating sand before you transmute atom one," Terra promised Shimmer. Her parakeet hitchhiker fluttered to the floor and became a bobcat that nodded in agreement.

"Then I guess we have a standoff," said Jinx. Her hands stayed leveled at Raven, rock-steady. Her face was a mask of contempt.

The pixels in Cyborg's vision grew, a sure sign of impending shutdown. He turned his glare toward the blob of bubblegum pink he suspected was Jinx, and said, "You can go."

He couldn't see her disbelief, but he could hear it. "What?"

"Walk out of here, and you're guaranteed to live," Cyborg said as he lofted Gizmo. "You leave Whiz-Kid with us and you walk. Or," he said, letting Gizmo drop, "Stay, fight, and die."

Jinx eyed him for several unbearably sluggish seconds. Her pink eye flickered to Mammoth, who had just started to come around. He couldn't be counted on to best a butterfly, much less a Titan. Next she saw Psimon, who would be lucky to have a face at the end of the day. Her wandering gaze returned to Cyborg. "You can't be serious," she told him.

"You aren't considering this, you skinny—" Gizmo's yowl cut short as Raven's soul self silenced him again.

Cyborg stared her down as best he could; he could only see blocks of colors now, as more of his backups failed. "Minute-thirty," he said. "Better hurry."

Three more seconds ticked by. Then the nimbus around Jinx faded, and she snapped her fingers at the stirring Mammoth. "Baran, grab Sir Brains-a-Lot. We're gone." She flashed a smile at the struggling Gizmo and winked, calling, "Sorry, Mik. Better a quartet than a bunch of scattered pieces. You understand."

Gizmo's filthy words were smothered by Raven's soul self, but his rude gesture said enough. Terra and Beast Boy appeared to share the sentiment as they stepped aside for the four to walk past. Raven watched them go impassively, but spoke with a worried whisper to Cyborg. "Are you sure about this?" she asked.

"Not even a little." The squat device gonged as Cyborg threw Gizmo into it. "Now, get cracking."

The pipsqueak terror snarled at all four Titans crowding around him. He collapsed onto the floor and crossed his arms and legs. Stony defiance settled into his round face. "Eat me," he told them. "Then die."

Shadow fell over him from behind. He craned his neck, looking up into glowing white eyes mired in impossible shadow, and gasped as the temperature around him plummeted. Steamy breath came from the darkened hood as the eyes narrowed. "Fine," Raven said, leaning close. Her breath curled around his face, chilling him further still. "Then get ready to be part of the world's densest baseball."

Gizmo gulped. He watched a countdown on the inside of his optic implants growing shorter, and recalled the test devices he had set off in preparation for this mission. The memory of old buildings being drawn into a space-time anomaly the size of a pin's head made him gulp again. He scrambled to the device and tore its access panel off, then yanked at its innards until the countdown in his vision froze and blinked out.

"Good boy," said Cyborg. He cuffed Gizmo upside the head, knocking the tiny villain out with a fraction of his mechanical strength. A fraction was all that remained. "Get this cyber-choad down to a holding cell. Then—"

Beast Boy stared at Cyborg with concern. In the excitement, he hadn't noticed Cyborg's injuries. They were impossible to miss now: jagged holes throughout his armor, melted at their edges and oozing with hemotrolium. More of the oily blood trickled from Cyborg's open mouth. "Hey, Vic," said Beast Boy, shaking his best friend's arm. "Are you gonna be—?"

Cyborg couldn't hear him through the shutdown warning that blared in his ears. He could hardly see the color fade from his circuitry, leaving his armor dark. Words formed in his throat, but guttural, synthetic stammering came instead as he opened his mouth. He felt himself stiffen and topple before his world fell away, banishing him to electrical limbo.

* * *

Jinx hugged her arms as she crossed the cold thicket of chains and gears that surrounded Slade's illuminated throne. The temperature of his lair didn't bother her so much as its aura; a frigid, unfeeling kind of hate that lurked in the shadowy hall, residual emotion so potent that even her stunted sixth sense could feel it.

Mammoth followed in a limping gait. His left leg could barely bend, and his face resembled purple hamburger, but he still managed to scowl. Shimmer walked by his side, seemingly unconcerned for his injuries. But every so often, she would cast him a furtive glance, careful that he didn't catch her. The girls moved slower to accommodate his leg, neither of them eager to face their employer.

The lair felt colder still as Slade's chair loomed in sight. As always, it was the only thing illuminated in his world of shadows. Jinx suppressed a shiver, listening to the booming voice that filtered through speakers unseen. _"Do you have what it takes to kill?"_

_"Yes,"_ a second voice hissed.

They exited the thicket and drew up to the base of Slade's platform. Slade sat with his back to their approach. Set on the distant wall beyond, the stadium screens high above them displayed the same image; a red-eyed Teen Wonder stared them down, larger than life and emanating pure hatred for whatever had captured the video. The image began anew, and this time Jinx recognized Slade's as being the first voice. _"Do you have what it takes to kill?"_

Robin blurred on-screen with unbelievable speed. The image exploded into snow, and only Robin's final word escaped the hiss of static: _"Yes."_

Jinx cleared her throat loudly, prompting an immediate reaction from Slade. His screens went black as he swiveled, examining the battered trio with a critical eye. "You seem to be at less than full strength, my dear," said Slade.

He did not rise, nor twitch a muscle. Still, Jinx reigned in her first impulse to blast him in the mask. Down that road lay certain death. "Gizmo will break out on his own," she said snappishly. "Psimon's another story. He's gonna need a plastic surgeon and an army of head shrinkers before he's close to okay."

He waved her worries away with a limp gesture, making her angrier still. "Consider this a valuable lesson on the merits of remaining on-task," he said. Though his tone did not rise, an icy rage entered his voice, freezing the anger from Jinx's body and causing her to shiver anew. "You deviated from my plan with your own objectives. You then compounded disobedience with ineptitude by failing at those objectives." Leaning forward, he asked, "While you were failing your own mission, did you manage to complete mine?"

She produced a small, circular minidisk. "Cyborg's original blueprints," she said. "One of the most restricted files in their mainframe."

At Slade's silence, Jinx tossed him the disk without delay. He snatched it from the air, making it vanish faster than her eyes could follow. Then he turned back to his screen, tapping a console at his side. The stadium video blinked to life, focusing once more on the Teen Wonder and his terrible red eyes.

"So, is that it?" Shimmer shot before either former HIVE student could silence her. She stepped past Jinx and placed a foot on Slade's dais. "We trade ass-whuppings with the Teen Twerps, get you some juicy stuff, and then it's 'Off you go?'"

The temperature around Jinx took a steep dive. She cursed her extra perceptions as Slade spoke without turning. "You performed inadequately on both accounts, and nearly revealed the identity of my Apprentice. Be thankful that you brought me what I asked for, or I would make you wish the Titans had captured you."

Mammoth scooped his sister away and sent her stumbling in the opposite direction. Jinx didn't need any more encouragement, and followed after Mammoth. The five seconds of footage looped on behind them, fading as they plunged back into the forest of chains and cogs. The spell slinger kept her pace quick and her eyes forward. But even so, she thought she heard a doubtful voice speak softly behind them.

"I didn't really think he would..."

* * *

When Cyborg powered back up, he felt himself upright and held fast by a series of sterile restraints. Armatures operated from the alcove around him, welding specific points on his fresh, smooth armor, or replacing delicate circuitry in his right arm. His vision came online, and he blinked the lingering static away to find himself set into the wall of the Medical Bay, occupying the repair station of his own design.

Raven glanced at him before returning to her administrations. She bent over Tek, who sat atop a biobed sans armor, and swiped a damp cotton pad across the shallow cuts in Tek's chin. Raven's hood rested at her back, revealing her indifferent concern as she rubbed the cuts clean. Tek didn't seem to mind her callous hands; a strange smile remained firmly on her features, no matter how much her injuries stung.

"You're up," Raven said sidelong to Cyborg. "You've been in there for four hours."

Cyborg willed the alcove to retract its armatures and deactivate. He stepped free of the alcove, rolling his new joints and plates experimentally. The mechanics worked fine, but his organics ached with every movement. He found it reassuring to still hurt after being shot so many times. "Gizmo?" he asked, flexing his cannon hand.

"Gone," said Raven. She tossed her swab aside and picked up a box of adhesive bandages. "He left a nasty surprise in the holding cell. Starfire's lucky to still have eyebrows. Keep still!" she snapped to Tek, and peeled a fresh strip for the girl's face.

"Sorry," Tek mumbled through her smile.

Her quiet joy struck a sour chord in Cyborg. "It's too bad about your armor," he said. "Maybe someday we can figure out how to fix it."

That smile grew, even as Raven plastered strips across her chin. "She's fixing herself," she said. Cyborg lifted his brow, prompting her to nod and say, "You know how, when you pull your muscle, you can feel it hurting, but it gets better over time?"

Cyborg looked down at his steely arms. "Less and less," he said.

She hadn't heard him. "That's what this feels like. I can feel her getting better."

Finished with her nursing, Raven stood and disposed of the bandage wrappers. Her impassive glare swept across Tek's expression without lingering. "I won't bother asking why you engendered your killer suit of armor," she said. "Instead, I'll make the mistake of asking you what you're so happy about."

"Yeah," Cyborg shot, folding his arms. "You got your butt handed to you, same as everybody else."

"Speak for yourself," muttered Raven.

But Tek just kept on grinning. "Don't you see? Those creeps attacked our home, and I fought them. Sure, I don't remember all of it, but...Wow!" She stopped a moment, blinking. "Our home. My home. That is so cool," she whispered to herself.

"Wait until we have a busy day," Robin said from the open Medical Bay door. He leaned against its frame and crossed his arms over a fresh tunic. A new mask bent over his eyes in a wry expression as he said, "After a real fight, scraps like this won't seem like anything at all."

Tek's teeth flashed as she slid off the bed. "I'm going to go study up on the files of that bunch you..._we_ drove off. Or I could set up a training session! Or..." A sharp grumble silenced her, taking her eyes down to her stomach. She rubbed her hand there, bunching her tank top between her fingers. "Maybe I'll start with something to eat," she said, blushing.

Robin slid back to let her through the door. "There's pie in the fridge," he called after her, stepping inside. As soon as the door closed, his face pinched into a miserable scowl. "So," he asked in a grunt, "How bad did we take it?"

Cyborg matched him grunt for grunt. "I'm not smiling like your little Suzy Sunshine, if that's what you mean," he said.

"We voted," Robin retorted reflexively. He glanced about, and asked, "Terra? Beast Boy?"

Raven stretched her empathic senses high, back toward the rooftop. The niggling knot of lust and release she felt above them greeted her, chasing her senses back under wraps. "They're fine," she said, and grimaced.

"None of us are fine," shot Robin. He locked eyes with Cyborg, doubling the larger teen's glare. Pale red light glowed behind his mask's lenses as Robin floated up to meet Cyborg eye to eye, surprising Cyborg back a step. "You said Tek's armor could be upgraded," Robin said.

"You said that would be a bad idea," Cyborg reminded him, regaining his composure.

"You said security here was unbeatable," countered Robin. Anger flushed in Cyborg's face, but Robin held his place. "Instead, all you did was put in a revolving door. Now fix it before the Puppet King decides to stop by for milk and cookies. And build something for Tek while you're at it."

Bristling ire burned through Cyborg as Robin spun and floated for the door. His hands creaked into fists, trembling at his sides. "She isn't ready for this," Cyborg said.

Robin didn't slow. "She is as of five minutes ago," he barked. "Slade isn't playing anymore, and we need all the hands we can get." As the doors swept closed, Cyborg and Raven heard him say, "She just made the team."

Silence roared in the Medical Bay. Raven felt the residue of anger Robin left behind vanish into the fresh, raging wave coming from Cyborg. He gripped the edge of a bed hard, so hard that it cracked and splintered between his fingers. "Cyborg?" she asked softly.

"Every time," Cyborg said, looking down at his fists as he crushed the bed's edge. "Every time we face off against Slade, that pointy-haired psycho gets a new power." When he looked up at her, Raven almost gasped at the intensity she felt him press into her, like a psychic shout. "Raven, he knew about the attack at the Tower. He's forcing this nobody-knows-what down our throats."

"The team is changing," Raven said. She rested a hand on his arm, worried at the rage she felt vibrating in him. So much of what Psimon put him through remained, poisoning his soul, pouring salt into an old wound torn open. "We all change," she said.

Cyborg dropped his arm out of her grasp. "I think it's something else," he said, turning away. "I think Robin is Slade's Apprentice. I think he's undermining this team and selling it secrets for thirty pieces of power." With a pointed look back at Raven, he added, "And I think we need to stop him."

* * *

Robin's boots skimmed above the tile as he stormed down the hall, lofted on alien ability and rage that pounded in his skull. He felt his bones throb with every beat of his hearts. He felt it twist his innards and push at the back of his eyes. Even now, his vision pulsed red as the anger fought its way out, threatening to melt his mask.

He couldn't believe it. Slade was on the assault again, and his own team was becoming a liability. They were doing Slade's job for him. How could Cyborg even question putting a weapon like Tek into play? She had stood against fearsome odds and survived. How could he let such a valuable asset atrophy out of play?

_They still don't understand._

No. No, they didn't. Whatever Slade had planned, whatever he had wanted at the Tower, he had won. It was time to take initiative and stop Slade's machinations before they grew further.

_Time to make plans of our own._

Yes.

_Plans that don't involve your friends. They can't be counted on anymore._

Slade needs to be stopped. Whatever it takes.

"Robin?" Starfire's soft voice banished the tempest in Robin's mind and spun him in place. She stood at the intersection behind him, hands clasped before her. The bruise from Slade's noose purpled in a puffy line around her neck. Her eyes shimmered. "You were speaking to no one again?" she asked.

The thought of his inner monologue (dialogue?) spilling out into vocalization spooked Robin enough to curb his anger and change the subject. "Are you alright, Kory?" he asked.

Robin's question came with tenderness that Starfire hadn't heard in his voice for some time. It stammered her reply of, "I am well." She could feel his eyes probing her behind the curtain of his mask. Memories of his bare face came to her unbidden, burning her with the unholy fire that had hidden his gaze from her. Bile rose in her throat at the memory's unwanted return, and so she turned on unsteady legs to vanish down the corridor.

"Koriand'r, wait! Please." Robin cemented her to the floor with a pleading tone. She remained rooted as he approached her slowly, fearful of scaring her off. "Kory, I know things have been weird between us. But you were right today: I needed you in that fight. And I think you saved my life."

Starfire dropped her gaze. "You do not need me," she whispered.

He shook his head. "I do," he insisted, drawing close enough to touch her. His glove brushed her arm, traveling down to take her hand. He lifted it in his, saying, "Kory, please. Whatever the problem is, can't we talk about it?"

The whites of his mask spread wide as Starfire squeezed back, and then pulled his hand to her chest. Tears shimmered beneath her eyes as she stared back at him. Her bottom lip trembled with pent emotions. With a long, stuttered breath for courage, she opened her mouth to speak. Robin hung on her every word.

"I hate you, Robin."

Robin's stomach plummeted as he watched Starfire pull back, tears trailing down her cheeks. Her hand flew to her mouth as she stumbled back and ran, disappearing down the hall. The floor lurched beneath him, forcing his hand onto the wall to keep his feet beneath him.

_She doesn't deserve you either,_ Robin heard as he dug into his belt for his bottle of small, white tranquilizers. _Forget her. Focus on the mission._

The pills jangled in his hand. He looked down at the brown, translucent bottle, slowly wrapping his fingers around its curve. His hand shook as he made a fist, crushing the bottle and its contents. Scarlet fire flashed in his palm. When he opened his hand, charcoal sprinkled from his glove. "Enough playing," he agreed. "We've got a war to win."

* * *

END: FEARSOME FIVE

NEXT: BEACH BLANKET BLITZ!

I apologize for the delay, everyone. My last semester in school is kicking the high holy snot out of me. Look for the next installment a little sooner than this last one! 


	28. Beach Blanket Blitz

_All-Purpose Disclaimer_

**Teen Titans** is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Cartoon Network Inc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit and purely for entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, not to be reproduced without prior consent. Additional information used in creating **Teen Titans: Avatar** courtesy of Titans Tower Online.

* * *

"Titans, go!" Starfire shouted from the air. Green fury poured into her hands as she squinted into the column of living light on the street below, waiting for a solid target to surface. The luminescence muddied the stars of the night sky into a beige ceiling and cast long shadows behind her friends' charge at the column. Even after so many battles, she worried for her friends. It felt wrong to think of her friends as less than able to handle themselves in a fight, but as she watched the green tiger below sprint straight at the column, she knew her concern to be valid. "Beast Boy," she cried, "Be wary!" 

Beast Boy didn't hear her, or didn't know what "wary" meant. He ran with teeth bared, claws digging into the pavement, and took a burst of photons to the chest in mid-leap. The blow burned the fur from his skin as it carried him into an abandoned car half a block back. Metal shrieked around him, wrapping him in folds of impact-absorbing hood. His feline form shrank to that of a dizzy boy. "Lite Brite! Lite Brite!" he sang in a woozy voice.

His partner in the frontal assault dug her heels in and skidded to a stop, tearing twin trenches into the pavement. The blast meant for her split the air before her, flaring in the dark visor scowl stretched across her helmet. "Yow!" Tek yelled through the grille over her mouth. The air grew hot enough to reach her in the sealed environment of her powered white and blue armor.

"Tremble, child," a theatrical voice called from the living nimbus. The terrible light began to draw in upon itself, condensing, brightening, and shaping itself into a man. That man's glow faded, leaving him to step into the spots in the Titans' eyes wearing black and silver armor. A nova burst upon his chest, illuminating the street as he bellowed, "Tremble as you are brought into the light!"

Groaning, Beast Boy leaned forward, squeezing out between the folds of metal around him. "Doctor Light," he said. A golden shape floated above him, leading his eyes and his gripes skyward. "Raven couldn't have come with us to see the movie? She'd have him wetting his bulb by now."

Five hundred pounds of metal armor flew at Starfire. Ignoring Beast Boy, she caught and cradled Tek as best she could, bringing them both to street level next to the shapeshifter. The organic surface of Tek's armor glowed, burning Starfire's resilient skin. She winced, but said nothing.

"Um, guys," said Tek, stumbling from Starfire's grasp onto a street that insisted on swaying beneath her. "What's the deal with the bulb guy? I don't think he's one of the super people stuck in my head." Smoke danced from her armor, wafting into the lit night sky. Her shoulders shrugged off a flaky layer of char as she groaned. "Why is he attacking the city, anyway?" she asked.

Beast Boy ducked, feeling his scalp prickle at a stream of light that nipped a path through his 'do, leaving him with a part through the middle of his hair. "Doctor Light. Looney. Likes light. Hates the dark," he quipped.

A blast meant for Starfire missed the nimble warrior and slammed into Tek. She skidded back, crossing her arms to stop the blast from twaining her entirely. "Okay," she grunted. "And how do we stop him?"

Thousands of tactics poured through Starfire's thoughts while Light drew streams of power from the neon displays and street lamps across the city block. For a second, she wondered what Robin would do. Then her eyes narrowed, banishing the thought with emerald rage. "We hit him until he does not rise," she growled.

Still smoldering, Tek lowered her metal brow. "Okay, then, she said, and took a deep breath. Her gorilla-sized forearms blossomed open and sprouted twin barrels that glowed with white heat.

Light watched his teenaged foes group together. His goatee twitched in a smirk. "Come, children," he called. "Surely you aren't afraid of the light." Ambient illumination clung to his suit, dancing and shifting through spectrums.

His smirk spread wide with fear as Starfire and Beast Boy stepped to either side, revealing Tek knelt before the wrecked car. Her arms lifted at him, and a fountain of shooting stars poured from her cannons and spanned the distance between them before he could flinch. He swept his arms in an arc, calling up a wall of light to stand against her plasma auto-fire.

The relentless force pushed him through the air, hammering him back inch by inch. His teeth gnashed and his power flared. More light streamed from Jump City's night scene to fortify his shield, giving him strength enough to outlast her assault. The last of her plasma splashed harmlessly across his wall as she lowered her glowing arms. "Do you see now? You cannot defeat Light!" he boomed.

"I see that our distraction worked." Starfire's voice came from above him. He looked up in time to catch her golden knuckles with his face. The bridge of his nose collapsed as he rocketed toward the ground, blinded by pain, helpless to catch himself as the world became a swirling tunnel.

Beast Boy watched the bedazzled villain spiral down. "The pitcher gets the sign," he muttered to himself. "Batter's in the box. Three-two count at the bottom of the ninth. Here's the pitch..." He ballooned into an ankylosaurus, crunching broken glass and flotsam beneath his feet in a mighty swing of his club tail. Light bowed around his tail and flew slideways off the end of the swing. Beast Boy shrank and stood, watching his line drive fly into a storefront window. Light disappeared through a cloud of shattering glass into a darkened business. "Ground rule double!" he cried, throwing up his hands.

Stomping steps turned his attention to Tek's approach. The smooth metal surrounding her slithered, lowering her human feet to the ground as her armor retracted toward the small of her back. Pieces of her helmet disassembled from her face, taking with them the tinny ring in her voice. "Was that too much?" she asked. "That looked like it really hurt."

Before he could wave off her concerns, Starfire floated down. She carried a starbolt in either hand. A scowl weighed heavily on her pencil-point brows. "Beast Boy! Tek!" she barked, landing between her friends and the shattered storefront. "Do not drop your guard. You do not know if our enemy is vanquished or regrouping."

"Are you kidding me?" scoffed Beast Boy. "I could hear his ribs go all xylophone on my dino-homer. His lights are out."

Starfire ignored him and strode toward the store. The shattered remains of a travel agency's sign hung in the window from cheap fishing line, spinning above her in a lazy pirouette as she stormed underneath. Her eyes swept the office inside, crossing broken cubicles along a clear path of destruction to where Light lay.

Crunching footsteps behind her did not sway Starfire's glare, though her bridled bolts extinguished. "See?" Beast Boy said, drawing up beside her. "Done and doner. Night, Light," he shot with a smirk. The villain did nothing to retaliate, other than to ooze.

Tek grimaced at the twitching ball of limbs splayed upon a heap of office debris. The bulb-themed armor was her only clue that this was their enemy of thirty seconds ago. Every so often, Light's leg (bent at a horrible angle) would twitch, proving that he had at least survived the counter assault. "Did we do this? This is...awful," she said.

Starfire's eyes faded into a glower. "Save your pity for those who deserve it," she said, and turned away.

Her friends watched her leave before turning back to Doctor Light's crater. Beast Boy clucked his tongue with a shake of his head. "Man," he said, "First Robin, then Cyborg, and now Starfire. Everybody's going grouchy in a hurry."

"Don't forget Raven," Tek reminded him.

"Raven goes without saying," Beast Boy said. His eyes wandered from their moaning foe, traveling across the wall in thought. "Seriously, though. It's like somebody put liquid jerk in the water. And this was supposed to be your first trip out of the Tower."

Tek blushed and shrank. If her jumpsuit had pockets, she would have buried her hands in them. "S'okay," she mumbled. Truthfully, she felt bad that the majority of her teammates hadn't come to her very first movie, but it felt silly to admit it aloud.

"Wait a minute," cried Beast Boy. His wandering eyes had fallen on a skewed poster on the wall. Within its crinkled borders lay a peaceful island seascape with a pristine white beach, complete with palm fronds that swayed in imaginary wind. Beast Boy crunched his way to the poster and pulled it from the wall. "This is perfect!"

Quizzical eyes followed his finger across the picturesque poster. "What is this?" Tek asked.

Pressing the poster to her face, he exclaimed, "Our vacation!"

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Beach Blanket Blitz**: _A Seaside Adventure In Which Our Heroes Escape the Rat Race and Take Things Slow For a Moment of Reflective Collection_

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

Beast Boy drew tremendous breath, rocking back on his heels to fill his lungs past capacity. Then he rocked forward and squealed, "Puh-leeeeeeeeaaassssssssss-uuuuhhh?"

"No," Robin snapped over his shoulder. He turned back to the folders spread across his desk, hunching over file photos of Slade and case reports from the past two years in a vain attempt to tune Beast Boy out. An elfin shadow wavered across his desk, making him wonder if a second light bulb was in order for his room. A better lock on his door would be an even better solution. "How did you get in here, anyway?" he asked.

The shapeshifter shrugged. "Bug in the air vent. Not important right now." He unfurled the tattered poster he had taken from the travel agency and laid it across Robin's files. The Teen Wonder leaned back with an annoyed breath as Beast Boy smeared his ordered information to show him a picture of a generic beach. "What is important is this," insisted Beast Boy.

Robin rubbed his masked eyes, which clenched shut to fight his oncoming headache. "No," he drawled into his gloved palm. "What's important is figuring out what Slade is planning, devising a counter-strategy, and stopping the destruction of the city and everything we hold dear."

"Oh, come on," Beast Boy whined, stomping his foot. "We've been double-timing it ever since Jinx and her bunch trashed the Tower. We've been looking and fighting and searching and having no fun at all, and it's putting everybody on edge."

"We're super heroes, Gar," Robin said. He snatched the poster up and crushed it into a ball. Scarlet light flashed briefly between his palms, disintegrating the ball into a puff of black dust. "If you're looking for fun, go join an after-school club. We work here."

Watching his visual aid crumble didn't deter Beast Boy in the least. "Yeah. We work. But we used to have fun, too. And we haven't done anything together in a long time, Robin." Beast Boy leaned over Robin's re-hunched shoulders. "Remember the togetherness? Remember the fun?" he said.

A mountain would have moved more, and responded more warmly. "No. Busy. Leave."

Beast Boy backed away, but with a cunning smile seated on his lips. Fingers laced behind his head, he strolled toward the door in the most circular manner possible. "That's too bad," he said, and sighed. "The girls were really looking forward to the beach."

A glance back made Beast Boy's smile triple; Robin's head tilted in consideration. "They'll get over it," he decided.

"Such a shame," said Beast Boy, as Robin resumed his paperwork. "They were so excited that they made Raven 'port them into town to go shopping. I heard Kory went straight to the internet to research swimsuits." Robin had stopped working entirely by now. Beast Boy made a big show of pulling his communicator out and flipping it open. Another long sigh whistled through his smile. "Oh, well. I'll just give them a call and tell them the trip is off."

* * *

Terra snapped her communicator shut with a manic cackle. "Hook, line, and sinker," she sang. 

The department store rang with laughter as Terra and Tek shared a high-five, earning them odd looks from the other patrons scattered throughout the women's section, as well as a couple of nasty glares from behind the help counter. "We're getting our getaway?" Tek asked needlessly.

Terra nodded. "A day trip to some tiny island in the Pacific that doesn't even have a name," she said. "Hot fun in the summertime!" She danced to her own imagined tune, swaying her denim-clad hips. The tied ends of her blouse swished, tickling her bare stomach.

"Awesome!" said Tek, smiling. Then her smile fell. "It is 'awesome,' right?" At Terra's nod, she looked relieved, and returned to hunting through the racks of flimsy, stretchy swimsuits that surrounded them. She tugged at the hem of her T-shirt, which bore a luminous Bat Signal around the curve of her chest, and leaned into a row of one-piece suits. "I have no idea what I'm looking for," she admitted.

Wry humor wrote itself on Terra's face as she snagged a belt loop on Tek's too-big jeans and pulled her back. "That's because you're looking in all the wrong places," she said with a nod to the "Clearance" sign above the rack. "You need something with flash and pizzazz."

"Says the girl who showed up on our doorstep in rags," Raven said coolly, gliding around a row of racks with a commercial cup of coffee in hand. Despite the warm weather, she hid herself in the shadowy depths of a hooded sweatshirt. "I remember the mountain of mud you washed out of your pizzazz back then," she said with a pointed look to Terra.

Something dark flashed in Terra's eyes before she tossed Raven a sardonic look. "That was back before I was on the Titan dime," she said. She plucked a back from the floor and scooped its contents out. "Check out what I got at The Expensive Boutique."

Raven examined the swimming shorts and sporty top that Terra held up. The shorts were smaller than her face, and the top was considerably smaller. "I assume they stretch," she said in a deadpan.

A paragon of beauty joined them opposite Raven, carrying a stack of swimsuit possibilities draped over her arm. Her rosy lips and radiant green eyes both smiled at the three teens gathered. Wearing a short, silken blouse and a pleated skirt, and blessed with flawless peach skin and a fiery mane, she drew both longing and jealous looks from the store's patrons. "True beauty comes from within," she told them. "Not from an expensive clotherie."

The sage advice met with Tek's confusion and a vicious round of eye-rolling from the other two Titans. "Says the girl with long, flowing hair and a figure that supermodels purge for," Terra said, resting a hand on tilted hip.

Starfire's holographic human façade flushed pink at the accusatory complement. She rested a hand on her dainty wristwatch unconsciously. "I am no prettier than any of you," she insisted in an embarrassed tone. "To think otherwise is foolishness and unbecoming of us all."

"Oh, sure," said Terra. She walked around Starfire in a lazy circle and hugged the disguised alien from behind. Linking her arms together, Terra rested her embrace just beneath the bountiful curve of Starfire's blouse. "You don't have anything for us to be jealous of," she said coyly, and lifted her linked arms higher up Starfire's chest.

Whereas the thought of a pecking order with her at the apex made Starfire blush, she didn't bat an eye at Terra's touch. "There are other and more important elements to beauty," she told Terra, nodding down at what her friend hoisted.

Terra grinned at the other girls around Starfire's shoulder as she let her friend's curves bounce back down. They did not fall far. "I don't think Balloon-Bod has ever seen a music video. What do you guys think?"

Recalling the host of swimsuits she had seen on television, Tek gaped in horror at Starfire's hourglass body, then at the low neckline of her latest consideration draped over her arm, and lastly down at her own chest. "Maybe just a sweater," she murmured, hurriedly placing the swimsuit and hanger back on its rack.

As Terra laughed and Starfire rushed forward to stop Tek, Raven retreated further into the unnatural shadows of her unseasonable hoodie. "Vanity is such a ridiculous concept," she grumbled into the lid of her coffee. "Society and media collaborate to create an unrealistic standard of beauty, forcing mindless sheep to starve themselves and spend hundreds of dollars on uncomfortable clown suits, all so they can parade themselves in front of equally mindless sheep with the same ludicrously unrealistic expectations."

"Wait," said Tek, blinking. "I'm confused. Are we sheep, or clowns?"

Shooting the amnesiac a glare, Raven concluded, "The whole process is a mindless dance that wastes time and goes nowhere. It's a modern perversion of an archaic cultural model for female objectification and aesthetic hierarchy."

"Isn't that what fat girls say?" asked Terra. With a mischievous twinkle in her eye, she added, "And besides, your uniform is basically a swimsuit anyway."

"With sleeves," Tek added helpfully as Starfire handed her more possible swimsuits. "And a cape!"

Irritation bubbled in Raven at the thought of the traditional vestments of Azar she proudly wore being likened to bathing trunks. She glared between Tek's innocent curiosity and Terra's infuriating smile, and then turned away. The gesture felt incomplete without a cloak to swirl around her. "I'll be waiting outside when you're done," she said. "Take too long and you'll be walking home."

The remaining Titans watched her weave through the store in silence. "Christmas wasn't enough," noted Terra. "Now the Grinch wants summer vacation too."

"Did we make her mad?" Tek asked. Shrinking, she added, "Did I do something wrong?"

Having been inside Raven's body and mind, Starfire knew the real reason behind Raven's moodiness, and did not share Terra's bemusement at her expense. Those secrets were not Starfire's to share, so she simply said, "Raven is...complicated. She does not have the same liberties as we do with expression and intimacy."

Terra felt a sharp twinge of jealousy as the last glimpse of Raven's low-cut jeans vanished behind a row of mannequins. "She oughta take more liberties," she said, shifting uncomfortably in her own jeans, which could never have fit her hips so well as they would her older teammates'. "With the right bikini, I don't think intimacy would be an issue."

Tek sighed and placed another of Starfire's choices back from whence it came. All of the older girl's recommendations seemed daring and exciting, two things that Tek never considered herself. "Raven really is beautiful," she said wistfully. "It's too bad she isn't coming."

Resolve set into Starfire's too-human face. "We will all be going on this vacation," she vowed in a strong, regal edict. "We have all been too distant with one another as of late, and to get away will surely help bring us back together."

Another malicious twinkle sparked in Terra's eyes. "Does all that togetherness include you 'n' Robin?" she teased.

Starfire stiffened at the suggestion. She took back the selections that Tek had replaced to the racks, as well as several more suits, and foisted them upon the two girls, deaf to their protests. "Help Tek select an appropriate swimming garment," she instructed Terra. With a pointed look to Tek, she added, "Do not let her leave with anything that makes her feel less than stunning."

"One order of sexy for Kid Amnesia, comin' up," said Terra. She shifted her spandex load to one arm and ran the liberated hand through Tek's crop of unruly, stubby black hair. "Maybe a stylist wouldn't hurt, either."

"I will worry for Raven." Strutting away, Starfire added silently what she could not say aloud: that in concerning herself with their sorceress, she would not have to think about whatever unpleasantness lay ahead with Robin.

* * *

Molybdenum steel hammered out a steady beat of impatience against polished tile as Cyborg waited outside the Vehicle Bay with toe-tapping impatience. A large duffle hung from his shoulder by a straining strap, laden with towels and sunscreen and a host of odds and ends he'd thought to gather at the last minute. Beside him, a small pyramid of coolers sat, each loaded to the brim with ice and drinks, beach-time foods, snacks of all kinds, and ammo for what Cyborg intended to make the most heinous water balloon war in human memory. 

Now the only thing missing was a posse to enjoy it all.

"Oh-eight-hundred means oh-eight-hundred," he muttered in a mockery of Robin's voice. "Dude gives us the day off, acts like we should kiss his boots for it, and then he doesn't even show up for his own muster call." Footsteps from down the hall ended his grumblings. He hoisted the strap on his shoulder and called out, "It's about time."

Robin rounded the corner first, followed by Terra and Tek. All three Titans still wore their uniforms, and the last of the three wore a curious bandana wrapped around her head, obscuring everything above her sleepy eyes. A duffel bag of weight and size similar to Cyborg's dangled next to Robin's hip. "Just getting a few things together," Robin said.

Cyborg leaned to see around the trio. Empty hall waited beyond them. "Like the other half of us?" he asked, scowling.

The sprightlier pair of their team appeared from around the corner, dragging with them one end of a blue carpet of tremendous weight. Beast Boy struggled and scrambled, his grip crushed in the fabric's edge, while Starfire hefted her half of the burden without effort. "Hello, friends, and glorious morning!" said Starfire, pausing to offer everyone a dazzling smile. "Apologies for our delay, but our duties as rear guard prevented timeliness."

Growing more confused, Cyborg asked, "And the rear guard is...?"

"Making sure Raven doesn't sneak out the back," grunted Beast Boy. His shoes squeaked on the tile as he pulled with all his noodly strength. The other end of their carpet slid into view, revealing Raven being dragged backwards by her own cloak. She sat cross-legged and wore unconcerned disdain on her meditative features. The line of her mouth was drawn tight beneath the shadow of her hood.

"Guard all you like," Raven said to the hall they'd just traversed. "I'm not going."

"You will go," Starfire said, and pulled Raven to her feet with one arm. With devilish cheer, she added, "Or I shall trouble you ceaselessly to join me in outings to the mall of shopping, or to a coffee dispensary, or to any other social center of my choosing. We will become inseparable, spending every moment treasuring each other's friendship with such gusto as to make all others around us weep with jealousy, and wish to the heavens that they could find incomprehensibly close friendship such as ours."

"So," said Raven, glowering everywhere except the broad, white expanse of teeth Starfire's face had become, "We're going to the beach."

Robin hefted his bag higher on his shoulder, using the movement to steal a glance at Starfire. It felt like a lifetime ago she had smiled like that with him, for him, at him, before he'd somehow ruined everything by giving her that damnable moon diamond. He knew his hopes were too high for this outing, but still he hoped that he could find the words that could repair the damage done. "We'll need you to teleport us to the following coordinates," he said to Raven, all-business, and pulled his communicator out.

Angry novas burned in Raven's hood. "Please tell me you weren't stupid enough to force me into a trip that hinges on me taking us there," she said.

A chuckle from Cyborg drew all eyes to him and the broad Bay door behind him. "I have a much better idea," he said. "Let's take our new ride instead."

Excitement burst in Beast Boy's face. "You mean our tank is a submarine too?" he squealed. Pumping his fist, he cried, "Awesome!"

"What?" Cyborg gave his friend a pained look, and said, "That is just stupid. You can't rig the CUTTER to run along the ocean floor any more than you could've turned the old T-Sub into a spaceship. No," he said, becoming excitedly solemn as he took on the role of the unveiler, "What I have to show you is way more exciting. I spent all night working on this for our vacation, so get ready to be—"

Terra cupped her hands to her mouth and called, "Quit milking it, Cy-Bore!"

With a nasty look at the blonde, Cyborg sidled to the end of the door and its control panel. The remaining Titans gathered close as he typed in his access code. "Titans and Titan-ettes, prepare to pick up your jaws. I present to you...my masterpiece!"

The heavy door trundled up into its socket, lifting the veil on Cyborg's exaggerated hype. Regardless of their collective cynicism, his friends couldn't help but gasp at the beautiful silver bird perched in the middle of the Vehicle Bay. Its great wings submerged the tremendous CUTTER in shadow; Cyborg's tank was an insect next to the tall, thick struts of the bird. Its single eye stretched above its angular beak in a soft, broad expression of glossy black. Tall trapezoids waited on its tail to stabilize its flight, just as the oversized thrust assembly built into its aft waited to propel it to the stars and beyond.

It took a full minute for any of them to find a voice. None of them could move, rooted to the spot. "Dude..." Beast Boy said at last, summing up their collective sentiment.

"I modified the Gordanian scout ship we captured," explained Cyborg. He led them into the hangar, walking backwards so he could enjoy their expressions. "Aside from the superstructure and some of the neater systems, I've reworked everything. She's got enough hardware to scare off just about anybody, and enough speed to outrun everybody else. Total seating for twenty, fully reclining seats, extra-large cup holders, and a fully equipped crime-fighting lab for the hero on the go."

"It's beautiful," Tek whispered.

They drew around the aircraft, which was even larger up close. Raven ran her fingers along a flawless weld on its landing strut in a bored gesture. Then she stopped, silently startled. The care and precision in the armor was readily evident, but more amazing was the love; Raven could feel the love Cyborg had built into the plane, the raw emotion he'd placed into each weld, each rivet, each plate.

Cyborg bristled at Tek's comment, stepping between her and the jet as though to protect it from her. "It is," he told Tek gruffly. Then he turned to the rest of his friends and announced, "I call it the—"

"T-Jet."

The team had spoken as one, flabbergasting the wind from Cyborg's sails. He stood there helplessly, looking from the disappointed look on Starfire's face, to the silent cynicism of Robin's creased mask, and to the open teasing written in Beast Boy's smile. "Well..." he said.

"You call it the T-Jet," Robin said. He shrugged. "What else?"

Incredulity twisted Tek's face. "That's not what you really call it, is it?"

Cyborg sputtered. "I am not taking flak from someone without a brain," he shot back at her. "And yeah, I call it the T-Jet. I built it. I name it. Anybody have a problem with that?" he asked, leaning forward with a hard look. His slate eye blazed with challenge.

"Dude," said Beast Boy, as he raised his hand. "Seriously. I thought you had busted out of your rut with CUTTER. But T-Jet?"

A titter sounded Starfire's agreement. "Truly," she agreed, giving Cyborg a joking look. "It astounds me that he did not name our home, 'The T-Place.'"

Bitter breath flared form Cyborg's nose. "Now y'all are just being mean," he said.

"Icarus." Raven's voice stopped the room. Her teammates' eyes returned to the landing strut, where Raven's touch rested. Looking up at the aircraft, she said in a solemn voice, "A teen of Greek legend. Icarus flew on wings of wax to free himself and touch the sky."

They stared at her unblinkingly. "Wow," said Beast Boy.

"Icarus," murmured Tek. She smiled. "I kinda like it."

Raven's hand fell from the strut. The dark shadow in her eyes returned as she said, "Keep in mind, Icarus also flew too close to the sun, melted his wings, and plummeted to his death."

Tek made a face. "Now I like it less," she said.

"Too late," announced Beast Boy. "Icarus it is." He watched Raven's lips twitch almost imperceptibly, and he grinned. With the perpetual grump that had radiated from them all, Beast Boy took the crack in Raven's darkness as a sign.

Cold blue eyes watched the shapeshifter's face split at their sorceress. "Everybody on board the Icarus," Terra called out. She looped her arm around Beast Boy's drawing him toward the craft. He followed quite willingly, and slipped his hand into hers.

Fuming, Cyborg grasped at the empty air. "But...but my T-Jet!" he whined.

His stack of coolers floated into the air on Starfire's shoulders. "I shall load our supplies aboard the Icarus," she called impishly to Cyborg.

As Cyborg watched the ungrateful gang pile around his masterpiece, Tek approached him from behind. She rested an unwelcome hand on his elbow and murmured, "I kinda liked T-Jet too, Victor. And it's a really nice jet..."

He jerked his arm free and stalked toward the nose of the plane. Already, Beast Boy was jumping up, scrambling at the underbelly of the fuselage in search of a ramp, as though it were an attic door he could catch and pull down. "Get on the damn ship," Cyborg snapped at Tek, never looking back. Tek waited several steps before daring to follow.

The joyous atmosphere of their vacation left Starfire dizzy and gleeful as she darted after Cyborg and Tek, hefting the coolers as though they weren't there. Thoughts of sun and fun made her feather light, and her friends' good humor gave her a giddy happiness she hadn't felt in months.

But all of that fell out of her as she watched her friends being swallowed up by the ramp of that craft. At that moment, the altered lines Cyborg had grafted onto his creation vanished, leaving its original shape to hang in Starfire's eyes. She watched in horror as the Icarus façade melted away to reveal the ship that had chased her halfway across the galaxy to drag her back to a life too horrible to contemplate, to memories too vivid to ever escape. Starfire stopped and stared at the ship, floating back to the floor without realizing it. The shadow of the terrible ship pressed down on her until it was all she could do not to crumple beneath it. Her burden of coolers clattered softly as she began to tremble. Invisible needles punctured her skin in the hands of remembered scientists, their cold, reptilian hands prodding her for reaction.

A cool glove rested on the clammy small of her back. She stared and looked to her side. There, Robin's horrid mask twisted itself into some semblance of concern. "Kory," he murmured, "It's okay to be a little uncomfortable. But that's our ship now. It's ours." Robin offered her a clumsy smile. "It can't hurt you."

Her heart leapt three feet, only to come crashing down the second she saw her reflection split between his wide, featureless eyes.

Starfire watched her expression fall a split second before Robin's did. The array of coolers crashed to the floor at Robin's feet. When he looked up to Starfire for explanation, he got instead a cold dose of ginger hair as she floated back into the air. "I believe I will accompany the Icarus from outside," he heard her say to no one.

"Kory," he called.

The remaining hope died in Robin's plummeting stomach as Starfire twisted her head around. He didn't know how to make a glare both icy and burning. Clearly, Starfire did. "I do not need my hand held," she told him. "And if I did, my first, second, third, fourth, and fifth choices would not be those hands on your slender, unfit wrists."

Robin watched her harrumph away with no idea of what he'd done wrong, or any notion of how to fix things. A wave of cold heat rose up his throat, no doubt collected from Starfire's piercing eyes. "You know what, Starfire?" he called back, "That's fine. Because I'm officially done holding your hand." Starfire didn't twitch, leaving Robin to grumble alone as he gathered the mass of coolers back together. As his hands crushed into the sides of their drink cooler, he glanced down at his grip and stopped. Taking up his hand, he turned it over and grumbled, "Slender?"

* * *

Sun, wind, and the sounds of the surf greeted Beast Boy as he walked off the ramp of the Icarus. They had touched down only moments ago, and Beast Boy had left his friends in the lurch with their bags and sunscreen and silly flight safety restraints. With a pair of shorts thrown over his shoulder, he jumped onto the beach and threw his arms out wide. "Hello, carefree day! Hello, sun and fun! Hello, no villains waiting to shoot lasers and bullets and boomerangs and robot chickens at me!" 

The ocean answered back with its crashing waves, drawing a pointy grin from the shapeshifter. He fell back against the sand and sighed, releasing tension he hadn't even known about. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the sun was still low enough to assure him that they still had plenty of day left to enjoy. Beast Boy sighed again, closed his eyes, and didn't open them again until a new shadow fell over him.

"Hey, Salad Head," Cyborg said, looming over Beast Boy with a cooler in hand. He let the box drop, doubling Beast Boy up, and brushed his hands clean. Like Beast Boy, Cyborg had his trunks slung over-shoulder. Whereas Beast Boy favored animal prints, Cyborg's trunks bore his signature circuitry pattern. "Thanks for the hand," said Cyborg, as he drew a soda from the cooler under which Beast Boy struggled.

Beast Boy pushed at the cooler to no avail until the sand around him rose up and lifted it from his stomach. He rolled over to watch Terra strut down the ramp with her own cooler. "Hey. Here you go," she said, cutting his thanks short by shoving her cooler into his chest. Arms akimbo, she stretched into the sunlight and squealed. "Aw, yeah! Feel that sand!" The very stuff she spoke of surged up around her boots, leaving bare feet in its wake as it receded back onto the beach.

Tek stumbled down the ramp to keep ahead of Robin's loud boot steps. She nearly tripped over Beast Boy at the bottom as her eyes fell on the glittering, bejeweled ocean surface. The empty skyline stole her breath, as though trying to fill its endless horizon. "It's so quiet," she murmured."

"That's the idea," Cyborg said into his soda can.

She would have looked on if not for a cold shoulder-check from Robin that staggered her off the ramp. The oceanic landscape did nothing to the perpetual grouch looming over his spikes. Nor did Tek's yelp as she tumbled over a cooler and took a header onto Beast Boy. Instead, his thoughts were still high in the stratosphere, where he had spent the entire flight staring at a golden sprite pacing their wingtip. Her gaze had never strayed to the view port, leaving Robin to stare with a mounting, infuriating sense that there was an all-out war of obstinacy between them that no one had told him about, and that he had been losing that war all along.

Evidently a mind reader, Terra swept the barren island behind them with a quick turn and asked, "Where's Kory? Didn't she land with us?"

'Who cares?' Robin grumped to himself. He kept his face toward the ocean to hide his sneer. An echo of his sentiment rang in his chest as he folded his arms and stubbornly watched the sky and ocean push at each other while the other Titans searched above. 'What's so great about Starfire anyway?' he thought.

Cyborg's scanners were fastest. "There she is," he said, nodding out toward the horizon of Robin's scrutiny.

Robin spotted a spray of silver on the distant waters. He squinted and caught sight of a red mote dancing across the calm. At first she seemed to kick up a spray with pure speed. But as she drew closer, Robin saw that she had actually slowed to pace a pod of dolphins. She danced with the creatures as they breached, twirling around them with arms wide and movement joyous. The dolphins tried to copy her aerobatics, while she tried copying theirs. Together, they became a spontaneous troupe, reveling in the sheer wonder of play for play's sake. Jets of water sparkled around them, dazzling their beached audience with scattered sunlight and aqua finery. No Titan realized the breath he or she held at Starfire's approach until their lungs burned and they were forced to gasp in admiration.

Only when the waters grew too shallow did Starfire's entourage break off. She flew over the beach and turned to wave at the pod. Each dolphin offered her a flip goodbye before splashing back to open waters. "Farewell, my friends!" Starfire sang as she touched down upon the sand. Turning, she exclaimed, "And hello, my friends!" The sea breeze caught her hair, sparking it into flickering fire while the sun gleamed in her wet skin.

'Damn it,' thought Robin.

"Nice entrance," a sardonic voice called from above. They looked back to the top of the Icarus's ramp. Raven filled the hatchway, with her cloak drawn fast around her and her hood beshadowing her grim expression. Not a drop of sunlight touched her ghostly skin. She hefted a duffle from the deck and tossed it down, letting it flop onto the sand with disdain. "There you go. Have fun."

Brief confusion spoiled Starfire's joyous smile. "You will not join us?" she asked.

The shadow around Raven darkened. "I came. That was the deal. Nobody said anything about getting sand in my..." Pausing a moment, she then reached for the hatch control. "I can't actually think of a place I would want sand in." And with that, the hatch slammed shut, sealing with a hiss.

Lifting the duffel to her shoulder, Tek gazed up at the locked ship. "Okay, she drawled, "So...where do we change?"

Silent gratitude for Raven's choice for her cloistering echoed in Starfire. "We will simply change out here," said Starfire. "Please to be handing me my swimming garments."

"Whoa, whoa, whu-ha-ha-ha-ha!" cried Terra. She leapt forward and seized Starfire's hands before they could peel away the lavender top of her uniform. Three sets of shocked eyes drilled into the pair from behind, eliciting a blush in Terra's cheeks and a curious look from Starfire. "Let's save at least a little mystery for the other half, huh?" said Terra.

Beast Boy followed Terra and the other ladies away from the Icarus. He skipped, wearing a smile too wide for his face. "You should respect other peoples' cultures, Tara," he called.

"And you should get that leak in your head looked at," Terra called back. "There's an awful lot of hot air spewing out."

The ground before her rumbled and rose, forming a cylinder of sand both tall and wide enough to accommodate their trio and then some. Starfire slipped through a small gap in the structure's wall, followed by Tek and their duffel. Beast Boy followed on Terra's heel, only to take a rising wall of sand to the nose as Terra closed the wall behind her. "Hey!" he cried, rubbing his nose. "What gives?"

"S'not co-ed," Terra answered sightlessly. "Find your own hut."

A brief and frantic search of the island revealed to Beast Boy only two options: their jet, which was now an anti-fun embassy, and the hut from which he had been utterly and wrongfully banned. "Seriously," he shouted, drawing smiles from Robin and Cyborg on their approach, "Where do we change?"

"Can't hear you," said Terra. "Getting naked."

A trio of titters from the hut ended Beast Boy's complaints. He turned to the mocking faces of his friends, little loving the idea of going "all-natural" before either of them. Then, a rare moment of inspiration struck.

Waggling his eyebrows, he concentrated a moment, focusing on the unstable molecular structure of his uniform. Designed to change with him, the garment took some extra effort to morph out of. But Beast Boy did just that, shrinking into a housefly within the collapsing confines of his uniform. He buzzed out its collar and flew into the trunks falling from the uniform's empty shoulder. Another thought expanded him back into human proportions, filling the colorful shorts out. He tugged at his waistband, snapped his fingers, and said, "Ha! Beat that."

Neither Beast Boy nor Cyborg saw the gas pellets enter Robin's hands. They merely watched his scowl vanish into an explosion of smoke that enveloped him, toe to top. Seconds later, the smoke cleared, revealing Robin in trunks and a tank top of the familiar coloration of his uniform, both of which bore his insignia 'R.' His uniform hung from his arm, neatly folded.

"Showoffs," Cyborg grumbled as he stepped into his superfluous trunks.

"Me? How about Kory?" Beast Boy scoffed as he mimed her flight with flapping arms. "That was like Super-Sea World stuff. Huh, Robin?"

Silence met Beast Boy's uncomfortably close scrutiny of Robin's face. Grinning, Cyborg said, "Haven't you heard? Robbie-Poo's been on the outs with Kory for ages."

"Seriously? I thought they'd patched things up," said Beast Boy. He stood on tiptoe, nose-to-nose with Robin. A careful eye examined the blank mask over Robin's sour expression. Sharp, whistling breaths sampled Robin's musk, which held such anger and frustration as to make Beast Boy stumble back in shock.

"Nope," Cyborg sang, loving the opportunity for some payback. "He's been eating nothing but cold shoulder. Don't tell me you haven't noticed," he said, speaking more to Robin's reddening neck than to Beast Boy.

Truthfully, Beast Boy hadn't. His blossoming whatever-it-was with Terra had occupied a hundred and ten percent of his attention as of late. That, and he and Robin were hardly close. But on the rare occasions when Robin wasn't yelling at him, or barking orders, or calling him an inattentive hindrance (whatever that was), Beast Boy felt like they had a real connection. And Beast Boy's recent romantic success made him ideal—no, obligated!—to help Robin out.

Taking Robin around the shoulder, Beast Boy said, "Don't you worry, dude. Beast Boy, PhD in Love, is gonna help you out."

The low rumble in Robin's throat broadened Cyborg's grin, doubly so as the wall of Terra's changing hut began to sink back into the ground. "You might want to take a step back, Doctor Boy," he said.

All three teens pulled back, lining up as though for inspection, sucking in their guts and puffing their chests without realizing. Their posturing fell through, however, once the sandy curtain receded to reveal their opposite numbers.

Tek's eyes widened at the gawking line. "Oh. Hi," she mumbled, shying from their gaze. She had nothing to shy about; her single-piece suit covered her quite conservatively with alternating sweeps of light and dark blue. The dark bandana around her head remained, an archaic accessory that covered her hair from view and contrasted the sharp blush in her cheeks. However, the modest curves and ropy sinew of her body made her appear to the Titan men an Olympiad pixie caught in an unwanted limelight.

Her unspoken wish for anonymity soon came true, as Terra strutted past her and gave a turn for their audience. "Like what you see?" she teased, giving Beast Boy's slacken jaw a wink. Her blonde hair flowed around her willowy frame like water, briefly obscuring the sporty lines of the brown two-piece clinging to her like a second skin. Her eyes flashed at the unanimous approval of her suit and (naturally) everything it accessorized.

But her fame flickered out all too soon, stolen by the approach of an earth-bound goddess. Her flawless skin gleamed gold in the sunlight, bereft of lines or mark. Each ample curve and hard-toned muscle in her body moved with preternatural harmony as she glided toward them. Three scraps of dark lilac clung to her body in what could generously be deemed a string bikini, and left very little for only the dimmest of imaginations to picture. Everything else she displayed with unfettered pride.

"Yes," whispered Robin, answering Terra's question despite himself.

Beast Boy tore his eyes away from Starfire's cleavage long enough to notice Robin's stone face cracking . He grabbed Robin by the arm and dragged him over, completely missing the indignant disappointment of Terra's expression. "Wow, Kory," he said loudly, stopping Starfire in her tracks. "You look phenomenal. Doesn't she, Robin?"

"Um," said Robin.

Starfire's brow tilted, making Beast Boy sweat. He smiled wider and slapped Robin on the back. "Ha! That kidder! But seriously, he was just telling me how great you look."

The tilt of her brow deepened as she looked to Robin. "Is this true, Robin?" she asked.

Seconds crawled by in agonizing silence. At last, Robin uttered, "You look...nice."

Starfire's eyes glinted like cold steel. "What an eloquent sentiment," she said icily. "I shall treasure it for the remainder of my life cycle. Truly." With a flip of her hair and a harrumph, she stalked off, trailed uncertainly by a nervous Tek and a laughing Cyborg.

Robin broke Beast Boy's grasp with a violent jerk, and then stomped off, muttering unspeakable acts with which to do Beast Boy grievous harm. Left behind, Beast Boy could only lament the lukewarm beginning to his grand master plan, "Operation: Get Robin and Starfire Together on This Awesome Beach Trip." But staring at Starfire's swinging hips gave him hope (and other feelings). Failure was not an option!

A tap on his shoulder broke Beast Boy's concentration. He looked up to find Terra staring at him expectantly. "So," she asked, striking a pose. "What do you think?"

He glanced through Terra's enticing pose to the broken couple beyond. "I think I've got my work cut out for me if those two are ever gonna get together." Sidestepping Terra, he ran after Robin's downtrodden trudge, and shouted, "Wait up!"

Terra's shoulders fell as she watched him go. "...what?" she asked too late.

* * *

Gentle waves rocked Robin as he rested on his board, far from relaxed. The red and gold fiberglass glistened beneath him, keeping him afloat as he drifted far enough from shore to insulate him from the thoughts of his teammates. Cradled in the serenity of a calm ocean, Robin could only curse a single name as he continued his forced and fruitless relaxation. Tension knotted in his back. Acid ate the edges of his stomach. Spasms danced gleefully at the lower corner of his mask. And all the while, a golden sylph fluttered through his thoughts in a swimsuit far too scandalous to be called "daring." 

No! He was done with that line of thought. He knocked his head against his board to jar the sylph from his mind. It didn't work, as his head was now far too hard to even feel such a tap. He cursed his powers for good measure, which cursed him back with a miserable feeling in his chest that reminded him of all the wrongdoing he'd yet to oppose while he floated uselessly with the tide.

Little did Robin know, his lazy self-recriminations were being observed by a gleeful set of eyes on the shore. Those eyes tore themselves from their binoculars to stare nakedly at the red mote bobbing on the water. "Ha!" Beast Boy said. "Classic opportunity!"

Cyborg glanced down at his little buddy while he clutched the flabby sides of an inflating beach ball. A micro compressor hummed in his chest, feeding air into the ball by way of a thin black tube protruding from his underarm. "What are you talking about now?" Cyborg asked. His voice drooped beneath an overabundance of apathy. Squinting, he homed in on the object of Beast Boy's scrutiny. "And why are you staring at Robin?"

Beast Boy didn't answer at once. He glanced past Terra to the spot where Tek and Starfire had pitched their beach towels. The two ladies talked amiably about innocuous non-particulars, occasionally glancing back in admiration to the hyper-realistically detailed sand castle building itself at Terra's feet. A gleeful grin broke Beast Boy's somber analysis. "Perfect. I couldn't have set it up better myself. All the pawns are on the checker board."

"Chess board," said Cyborg.

"It's the same board," Beast Boy said snappishly. "Now, if I may continue?"

"Oh, please do," Cyborg deadpanned.

"There are some sure-fire romancified situations in beach romance," explained Beast Boy. He drew the binoculars back to his eyes and resumed his observation of Robin. "I've studied them a lot during the Megaplex Megacheap Insomniac Old Moviepalooza on late night TV."

A quizzical mirth creased Cyborg's brow. "I'm not sure it counts as 'studying' if you give yourself a sugar buzz and then fall asleep at four in the morning watching a test pattern."

Dropping the binos, Beast Boy framed Starfire and the distant Robin in a box made of his fingers. He squinted, setting the scene in his mind. "Now, what we have here is a Situation Eight: The Big Kahuna."

"That being?"

Beast Boy rubbed his hands together. "Boy and Girl are on the fritz. Boy enters big surf contest. Girl is worried about Boy hurting himself, and watches the contest. Boy dazzles Girl with awesome surf skills. Girl swoons. Boy and Girl become king and queen of the beach." He cackled. "This is so great! I was gonna bust out a Situation Three, but this is way better."

"This is stupid, Gar. There's no...Wait." Cyborg blinked. "What's a Three?"

"Beach Boogie." Beast Boy began to twist and jerk, grunting a guttural tune more at home in the cinema of half a century ago. "Everybody dances, and it just sort of works out."

Cyborg watched his friend have a musical seizure for a long, embarrassing moment. Then he buried his face in his hand and desperately tried to unsee what he had seen. "I stand corrected: That was stupid. The surf thing is just dumb. There's no contest, Kory doesn't have to worry about a guy who can literally eat bullets, and you don't even know if Robin is any good at surfing." He watched Beast Boy's pointed ears twitch, and wondered if the stuff between them had anything to do with the shapeshifter's actions. "You haven't heard a word I said, have you?" said Cyborg.

"No time for that now, Vic," said Beast Boy. "I've got two hearts to save."

Tall parapets rose higher, spurred on by Terra's boredom. Her disappointment had already built a wall and inner keep around the miniature gothic castle she'd pulled from the sand, and was well on its way to raising an outer wall with guard stations, when she saw Beast Boy running toward her. She gasped excitedly and stole her will back from the sand, letting her kingdom (christened "Markovia" for its ruler) sink and fall back into a featureless pile. "Gar! Hey!" she called, rising from the ground. She drew in her stomach, lifted her chest, and concentrated.

The long hours spent practicing the night before paid off for Terra in that one moment. The ruins of her sandy kingdom surged upward, taking the rough shape of a feminine figure caught in the embrace of a masculine figure. Sweat beaded on Terra's brow as she sculpted the pair in her mind, making their details manifest through the amber glow of her eyes. The statuesque sandman grew elfin ears as his outline hardened into impressive muscles. He held in his massive sand arms the slender waist of a girl dressed and built alarmingly similar to her sculptor's. The two statues met at the lips, frozen in a passionate embrace, their detailed sand hair swept up on a wind no one but they could feel.

Gasping with effort, the bright-eyed Terra leaned on her creation and gave Beast Boy a sultry smile. "So," she asked in a husky voice, "Wha'cha up to?"

"Sorry, gotta talk to Robin," he blurted as he ran past.

Terra gaped after him. Behind her, the statues melted into the shape of a broken heart.

Beast Boy plunged into the surf, shivering a moment as he waded in to waist-height. Once deep enough, his skin scaled and shrank, and his legs vanished out of his suit as he became a barracuda. His purple printed trunks floated toward the surface before he snatched them in his needle teeth and set out for Robin's distant board. Sleek and speedy, the trip took a fraction of the time he would have spent dog-paddling.

Ever unflappable, Robin didn't flinch as Beast Boy's head broke above water next to his. "Dude," he sputtered, "How's it going?"

"Fine, up until about five seconds ago," Robin muttered.

Beast Boy's head dipped below the water as he slipped back into his shorts. When he reemerged, he wore a smile that chilled Robin's tropical warm to the bone. "So, I couldn't help but notice you have a surf board," Beast Boy said.

"Wow. Which one of us is the detective, again?"

The board nearly flipped as Beast Boy propped his elbows on its edge. They met, glare to grin. "I gotcha. The ocean's too calm, so you don't have any waves to thrash. Nothing to impress that special lady with." Beast Boy's eyebrows danced.

Robin's mask became twin slits. "Gar, what the hell are you talking about?" he snapped.

Beast Boy slapped Robin's wet chest. "Well, don't you worry, dude. Your very own evergreen Cupid is on the case. Just grip it and rip it. Oh," he added, doubling back before he swam away, "Don't drown. I'd be in a lot of trouble if this kills you."

A very legitimate question died in Robin's throat as a green pterodactyl wearing tasteless trunks burst from the ocean, spraying Robin's face and nearly knocking him into the water. Robin craned his neck to track the leathery beast into the sky above him. He looked back to shore, wondering if this was an orchestrated joke of some kind. Then he looked back up and paled as the sun vanished behind a tremendous, flippered shape.

The ocean exploded at the belly flop of a green blue whale. Robin screamed and rode his board onto a massive wave arising from the fall of the vanishing whale. Then he clung to the board amidst a roaring, spraying, swaying nightmare that had destroyed his calm ocean and now threw him toward the shore.

Every Titan left on the beach looked up at the sound of the whale striking water. Now they gazed through shrinking pupils at the ocean, which had somehow turned on its side and flowed at them in a localized tsunami that towered over their tiny island. Tek's back exploded into a nova of blue-white light which soon gave way to a flow of technology, swallowing her into her armor mere seconds before the wave struck shore. Terra dropped flat onto her belly and pulled a shell of sand over herself, disappearing beneath the ground as Cyborg crouched miserably and ducked his head, swearing revenge on Beast Boy if it was the last thing he did. Starfire stood in uncertain concern as she watched a lone figure riding the wave. The cry of the figure distracted her, leaving her too late to fly out of the wave's way. She made it only halfway up its height before the tsunami collapsed onto their island, soaking the beach in enough water to crush any normal person without fail.

As the water receded back into the ocean, the dark sand of the beach broke apart with the coughing and sputtering of four drenched teenagers. Cyborg lay next to Tek, whose armor pulled back into its mysterious dimensional fissure to spit up that water it had been too slow to protect her from. The sand burst apart for Terra, who broke from the ground wearing a sodden coat of grit and sucked in greedy breaths of air. Robin pulled himself from the wet sand with a groan and found himself staring straight into Starfire's face as she did the same, rubbing her head where his surfboard had struck her.

"Woo hoo! Major shreddage, Robin!" Beast Boy called from the surf. He stood waist-deep in the rolling water, thrusting his fist into the air. "Big Kahuna! Big Kahuna!" he chanted.

Starfire's eyes blazed into Robin as he looked back and forth, confused. She picked up his board and broke it in half with a gesture, tossing the pieces aside as she glared pointedly at him. Then she stuck her hand into the sand, digging out the sandy, soggy mess that remained of her beach towel, and left Robin standing in her huffish wake.

Cyborg lifted his arms and let the water drain from his joints in tiny, stuttering rivulets. He glared out at the ocean and its green mer-moron. "Nice plan, Gar. Top notch," he called.

"Thanks! Could you toss me a towel, or something?" Garfield cupped his hands and ducked down as the tide receded, growing dangerously low over his bare waist. "I lost my shorts when I did the whale thing back there!" A wet towel struck his face, propelling him back with all the force of Cyborg's irritation. He surfaced again in a coughing fit and tore the wet blanket from his eyes. "Thank you!" he said, waving.

* * *

Seasoned beef sizzled on the face of a small, round grill, dispersing a tantalizing aroma that made Cyborg's mouth water. He flipped the hand-made patties, and then checked on the long, spicy brauts flanking his veritable banquet of meat. Begrudgingly, he checked the misshapen lump of pale blasphemy cooking a safe distance from the real food on his grill. He couldn't be certain, as he refused to learn more about tofu than he had to, but the faux-burger looked ready. "Yo, Gar," he called, "Come get your 'fu off my grill." 

Clad in fresh trunks, Beast Boy scrambled from the intimate conversation he'd been sharing with the back of Starfire's head on her beach towel as she sunned. Bun in hand, he braved a scathing look from Terra without ever noticing it and swaggered up to Cyborg and his mini-grill. "That's a nice T-BQ you've got there," he said to Cyborg, who slapped the white glob onto his bun.

"Shut up," snapped Cyborg.

His gaze drifted up to their disastrously mute party. Starfire and Robin sunbathed at opposite ends of their beach, remaining close enough to cast one another furtive glares on occasion. Terra sat propped against their jet's landing strut, alternating between wistfully staring at the ocean and palpable disappointment aimed at Beast Boy. Tek remained thoroughly confused and isolated in the middle, shifting uncomfortably as she developed a sunburn.

Dipping low toward Beast Boy, Cyborg whispered, "How's Operation: Get Robin and Starfire Together on This Awesome Beach Trip going?"

With a shrug and a whispered voice, Beast Boy replied, "Well, the only progress I've made so far was to change the original name. Too goofy."

"So it's now..."

Puffing with pride, Beast Boy said, "Operation: Beach Blanket Blitz!"

Cyborg's eye rolled. "Much cooler," he said.

"Thank you," said Beast Boy. "But other than that, no, it's going horribly. Kory said she wouldn't speak to Robin ever again unless she had to, and that I was an obnoxious klorbag, and that I should go away before she garfles my takflub."

Cyborg snorted. "Well, maybe things'll go better after we've had something to eat. Lunch is almost ready."

Tek appeared at his side in the blink of an eye, dragging her beach towel with her. "Did I hear right?" she asked. Her hand drifted toward the grill as she exclaimed, "I'm starving!"

The grill gonged as Cyborg slapped his spatula down, chasing Tek's hand back. "It's not ready yet," he announced gruffly. But his stern look faltered as shocked hurt welled in Tek's eyes. He deflated quickly, feeling the slightest twinge of guilt, and said, "I mean, it's—"

Quick green hands robbed the spatula from Cyborg's grasp. He stumbled as Beast Boy shoved him aside, and then stared back as his friend banged the spatula on the grill face. "Rarrg, I'm Victor!" Beast Boy announced loudly, and threw his chest forward. He clutched his left eye shut and waved the spatula in Tek's surprised face. "Stay away from my grill! I'm the Grillmeister, and nobody touches my grill! Stay up outta my grill!"

Tek giggled, relieving Cyborg and irritating him at the same time. He hunched his shoulders and stole the tofu burger from Beast Boy. "I'm Gar-field," sand Cyborg. "I respect all of God's tastiest creatures, even though they'd eat my skinny butt given half a chance."

Beast Boy swaggered up to Cyborg, lapping up every one of Tek's laughs. "I'm Vic," he began again. "I drink motor oil, and I protect my team by stepping in front of every laser and fist my slow, metal butt can catch."

"Well, I'm Gar," countered Cyborg, lifting his leg as he propped his chin on his hands and fluttered his lashes in Beast Boy's face. "I think I'll take on Cinderblock by turning into a hummingbird. Buzz, buzz, buzz! Splat!" he finished, mashing his fist into his palm with a grin.

Peals of laughter knocked Tek to the ground, where she clutched her ribs and fought to catch her breath. "Oh! Oh!" she cried, rolling to her feet with towel in hand. "Quick, who am I?" Tek draped the towel over her head and shoulders, forming a crude hood. Her face twisted with uncharacteristic dourness, and she growled, "I like to read, and I hate noise. Beast Boy, stop smiling so loudly! And why does the sun have to be so cheerful?" She broke character with a laugh. "Give up? I'm—"

"—the smartest person on the beach."

Tek blanched inside her makeshift hood and turned slowly. A prickly cold crept up her spine when she found Raven waiting behind her, glaring impassively from her shadowy cloak. When Tek glanced back to Cyborg and Beast Boy for help, they were a good ten feet away, whistling innocently. She tore the towel from her head and stammered, "I-I-I-I didn't..."

"Came down for food," said Raven. A bun blackened in the bag by the grill, gravitating up to the array of sizzling meats and scooping up a patty. The burger flew into Raven's hand as she spun back up the ramp. Her loud footsteps beat Tek into a despondent wreck.

"Raven, I-I-I-I-I..." stammered Tek.

"Don't care," Raven called back.

Beast Boy stepped to the bottom of the ramp, upstaging Tek. "Raven," he said, "Did you want to—"

"No." The hatch sealed itself behind her.

Miserable silence returned to their beach in full force, sucking the air out of Beast Boy's sails and sparkling in Tek's eyes as unfallen tears. Beast Boy looked around at the ruins of their vacation and knew that it would be up to him to save it. He dove into the stack of bags next to their armada of coolers and came back with a wadded net and a volleyball. "Hey, Tara?"

Terra looked up from the sand castle building itself at her feet. "Yeah?" she asked with a glimmer of hope.

"Think you could whip up a set of poles? Let's get a game going."

"Oh," said Terra. A sour look flitted past her features as she rose from the landing strut. With a bored gesture, she lifted twin columns of sand, and then squeezed them hard. Their granules crackled as the columns shrank into a pair of sandstone poles.

Starfire barely glanced at the affair, which was twice as much attention that Robin gave it. "I do not wish to play," Starfire grunted, and rolled onto her stomach as she threw a glare as far from the Teen Wonder as possible.

"Well, I..." Beast Boy looked up at Cyborg, receiving a helpless shrug in reply. Luckily, his boundless wealth of brilliance (which had been on a roll lately) supplied a handy answer. "Okay," he called out between the defunct couple. "I heard that you're pretty sucky at volleyball anyway."

Sand and towel flew out from underneath Starfire as she stormed to her feet. Even livid, she captured Beast Boy's eyes as she stomped through the sand, a furious symphony of muscle and curve. The hypnotic flow of her body kept him from spying the green glare of Terra's baby blue eyes, as well as the dark tower of fury that appeared behind him. Only when Starfire stopped before him to glare over his head did he look back and realize Robin's smoldering presence behind him.

"So," snapped Starfire, "I am 'the sucky' at volleyballs?" Hands on hips, she leaned forward, squashing Beast Boy down.

Robin matched her glare for glare. He pushed in, forcing Beast Boy to retreat into Starfire's cleavage or be crushed. "I wouldn't know," Robin shot. "I guess you were too busy talking behind my back to play the game."

"I would be pleased to educate you on the subject of my athletic abilities," said Starfire.

"Game on," snarled Robin.

"Indeed!"

They each grabbed an end of the balled net in Beast Boy's grasp and pulled. The net unfurled taut and caught Beast Boy in the face, throwing him to the ground as the competitors took to the air. He lay on his back, watching them tug the net back and forth at the sandstone poles, and felt immense satisfaction; his plan was working perfectly.

The sand beneath him rose, lifting him. Terra waited above to steady him onto his feet. Once he'd balanced, her hands lingered on his arms. "C'mon, Gar," she said, managing a smile. "Let's show these guys how it's really done."

"Maybe some other time, Tara. I'm on a mission of love!" Beast Boy walked out of her grasp. "Boys against the girls, everybody. Let's do this!" Bounding away from the thunderstruck blonde, he bounced to one of the posts and tugged on Robin's sandaled foot. "Psst. Robin. We're gonna lose to the girls, okay?"

Robin floated near the pole's top as he tied his end to the net. "Not a chance in hell," he growled.

Beast Boy pulled him to the ground and took him by the shoulders. "No, see, girls like it when they think they can beat you, and stuff. So you lose, she swoons." He grinned. "Get it?"

The cold, empty expanse of Robin's eyes narrowed with deliberate slowness. "Not. A chance. In hell."

"Great." Beast Boy slapped Robin on the shoulder and scampered to the opposite pole, where Starfire finished with the next at her end. "Hey, Kory," said Beast Boy. "Listen: Robin really likes you, so he's gonna let the girls win. So take it easy on him, okay?"

Starfire's eyes blazed as they fell upon Beast Boy. "I would sooner kiss Plasmius than accept false victory from that xyatalplok!" She snatched the ball from his hands and glared. "Remove yourself from our side of the net. I will crush you without your chauvinistic condescension."

"Alright!" Clapping his hands, Beast Boy grinned and trotted back to the other half of their makeshift court. There, Cyborg and a grim Robin joined him while the Titan ladies organized themselves. Starfire took position at the front of the net, prompting Robin to shove Beast Boy back and match her placement.

Terra stood at the back with the ball. "Comin' at ya, Gar," she called, and batted the ball over the net.

Her smile waned as Beast Boy answered, "Heads up, Kory!"

He popped the ball into a lazy arc that sailed high over Starfire. She could have stood still, stuck out her arms, and returned the ball with the slightest twitch of her arms. Instead, she soared up after the ball and pounded it into Robin's face.

Robin yelped and stumbled back. The ball ricocheted into the sand, kicking up a wave of grit that fell into his open mouth. He sputtered his tongue clean and gritted his teeth to the tune of Starfire's laughter. "Too slow, Robin!" she shouted. "Perhaps if you did not spend so great a time in your room with the studying, you might almost be of my match."

The ball rolled back to Terra, who picked it up and served again without comment. Her volley sailed through the tense air and over Starfire's smug smile, which split for a cry as Robin leapt up and spiked the ball into her stomach. She stumbled back and clutched her red belly, shooting a venomous glare through the net.

"Must not be as quick as you thought," he retorted, while Tek nervously rolled the ball to his side. "I guess all that wishy-washiness weighs you down." With a cruel smirk, he added, "Or maybe you've put on a few pounds."

Shocked silence thundered across the beach, broken only by the steady thrum of the tide. Starfire ran a hand across her perfect abs and pressed her lips into a line. "You speak as though you could notice such an _impossible_ gain in mass through the impedance of your greasy mask."

The ball bopped off Cyborg's fist as he served. "Like you'd even come near enough for me to see," said Robin, as the ball tumbled back to the girl's side.

Starfire shoved Tek out from underneath the ball and pounded it back over the net. "I have no reason to go near you," she said.

Robin flew over a protesting Cyborg and slammed the ball back over. "Good! I don't want to see you!" he shouted.

"Got it!" yelled Terra. She set the ball up, and then was plowed under by Starfire's flying dash.

"I do not want you to want to see me!" Starfire yelled, and spiked the ball.

The white comet bounced hard off Beast Boy's face, setting the ball for Robin' counter-assault while the shapeshifter lost consciousness. "Well, who would want to?" Robin shouted.

Starfire flew up, practically over the net. "There are worlds of boys who would attend to me over crime-fighting!"

Robin flew into the air to meet her return. They batted the ball back and forth, their blows growing more powerful, their voices louder and more heated. "I guess you should go find somebody who fits all your selfish little whims," said Robin.

"True selfishness is hoarding yourself," Starfire barked.

"What does that even mean?" bellowed Robin.

Starfire roared and struck the ball down with a hammer blow. The vortex of the shot blew Robin through the air as the ball exploded at Cyborg's feet. Cyborg flew back in a spray of sand, landing in a heap atop Beast Boy. The sandstone posts crumbled as Terra and Tek ran forward, shouting opposite names as they crossed the collapsing net to the dog pile. Starfire and Robin floated down on opposing sides as the ladies pulled their boys apart.

Tek helped Cyborg sit up, where he clutched his knee and hissed. "Vic, what's wrong?" she asked.

"Get offa me!" snapped Cyborg. He threw Tek's arm from his shoulder and struggled to his feet. "I don't need your help," he told her. "Just stay away from me!" Eyes on the sand, he limped toward the Icarus, leaving behind a shocked expression on the verge of tears. That expression, and its owner, stumbled down the beach as fast as her scrawny legs could carry her.

Starfire stared through the scene at Robin, who stared back wearing an identically uncertain look. Her vision blurred hot, and she couldn't look any longer. She took to the sky and flew away, clutching her arms to her chest and crushing her tears back. It took Robin all of two seconds to take off after her, calling her name.

Left alone at last, Terra forgot her frustration and eased Beast Boy from the crater he lay in. The sand lifted him back to ground level at her behest while she smoothed the sand from his face. "Gar, are you okay?" she said, combing her fingers through his hair. She kept a smile waiting for him as his eyes fluttered open.

Sand fountained from his mouth in a groan. "Did it work?" he asked.

"Did what work?"

She helped him sit up. Groggy, he looked around the deserted beach. "Robin and Kory. Are they back together again?"

Terra sighed disgustedly and let him drop again. "Yeah. They're a regular item. Congrats." She stalked away, kicking sand in her wake.

Beast Boy sputtered in the spray as he watched her go. "Sweet!" He spit up more sand and jumped to his feet. A few quick bounds caught him up to Terra's irate march. "Doctor Love strikes again!" When Terra quickened her gait, he jogged to keep pace. "Hey, so now that I fixed them up, y'wanna go for a swim or something?"

"I'm busy," said Terra. She switched directions, leaving him in the lurch.

Beast Boy frowned. Running after her, he asked, "Wait, what's up? Are you mad?"

"Mad?" snapped Terra, keeping her eyes locked forward. "Why would I be mad? I've only been trying to get you to notice me all day. Now that Balloon-Bod and Captain Songbird are happily-ever-after, you're all set to notice me. Hoo-frickin'-yay!"

A wave of sand rolled up after Terra and bore down on Beast Boy with cold, impersonal fury. His eyes bugged, and he jumped, barely clearing the crest of the sand. "So if you're not mad, come back and talk to me!" cried Beast Boy.

"Go to hell!" Terra shouted.

She threw her hand back. The ground trembled and surged, erupting into a wall of sand. Shadow swallowed Beast Boy as the living sand blotted out the sun. Its edges curved around Beast Boy and fell, giving him time enough for one last whimper before hundreds of pounds of beach entombed him next to the surf.

* * *

"Kory, wait!" 

Starfire clenched her fists and clutched her tears tighter, and flew higher into the air. She refused to let Robin see her cry, even if it meant running away. A lonely embankment of clouds floated high above, puffy and inviting. She soared into their midst.

There, masked in the tranquil white, she finally let her tears free in short, silent, shuddering sobs. She clutched her stomach and released weeks of bottled feelings she'd kept down in the unnatural earthling fashion. They'd sat in her, making her nauseous and miserable, rotting in her heart. Now freed, they plumed from her in pressurized gouts of tears and empty cries.

"Kory!" Robin's voice pierced the cloud, sharp and clear. A haze of red light circled around her in an inescapable perimeter. "You can't keep running away. I can go wherever you can now."

"Oh, yes!" she snapped back. Her hand swiped uselessly at her cheek, unable to stem her tears. "How could I forget the awe-inspiring power that is Robin? None may escape his righteous fury!" she shouted.

The crimson beacon flared, forcing Starfire to flinch away. She felt uncomfortably warm as they cloud around her boiled away. When she opened her eyes again, the cloud had died, and Robin floated before her with dimming fists. "I am so sick of this," he snarled. Arms across his puffing chest, he drifted closer. "Where do you get off—" One look at her face deflated his ire. He leaned close and asked, "Are...are you crying?"

Starfire whirled away. "Yes! Now leave me alone!" She dropped from the dissipating cloud, leaving behind a salty trail for Robin to stare after.

"Ballistics, forensics, urban warfare..." Robin muttered to his absent mentor. "Years of training, and you couldn't teach me even one thing about girls?" Inverting, he pushed through the air after her. "Will you stop for one minute?" he shouted.

She landed on a sandbar some distance from their desolate paradise. Wet sand seeped between her toes as she settled, feeling as though she weighed a thousand tons despite the grief she'd finally rid herself of. She felt heavy and empty, and refused to turn when she heard Robin land behind her. A wave of disquiet swept through her as his eyes probed her bare back, and she suddenly wished she was wearing more than a scrap.

"If you didn't feel that way about me, that's fine," lied Robin. "But I can't figure out what I did to deserve months of this. We used to be friends, Kory." He reached for her shoulder, pulling back at the intense cold that radiated from her warm, burnished skin. "Why do you hate me?"

"Because I love you, you klorbag!"

The crash of the ocean vanished, drowned out by two hearts furiously beating. Robin froze in the tropical heat, unable to breathe or think, staring at Starfire's sculpted back as the breeze lifted her lustrous hair. He suddenly felt small and weak, and couldn't figure out why.

Her words would wait no longer. Starfire bowed her head and turned, and surrendered. "Tamaranians are creatures of emotion and instinct. This, you know." Robin wisely bit down on his sarcastic reply as she continued, "And we know that there is only one true way to know a person."

"Through their actions," said Robin.

She frowned. "No," she chided him, "Through their eyes." Robin's mask widened as her gaze fell back to the sodden sand, growing thick and blurred once again. "The eyes are a gateway to the true essence of a being. To what you would call, 'the soul.' A single glance may tell more of one's character than years of camaraderie."

The space-age fabric on Robin's face burned. He reached up and brushed its black edge as it crushed his eyes and nose, nauseating him.

Robin dropped his hand quickly as Starfire looked back up. Her shimmering eyes narrowed, and she stalked up to Robin. "You claim to feel something for me," she uttered. "But you cannot. You are nothing, Robin, save for a myriad of devices and skills with a single purpose. You are a hero, not a person. You have nothing to offer. And I hate you," she said, glaring in his face, "For making me love a nothing."

Hot, hateful tears glistened in her eyes. Behind them, Robin saw the miserable reflection of a confused and angry fool. He stepped back and took off, flying until he was nothing but a speck in her eyes. Starfire kept her glare only until she could not see him anymore. Then she fell upon the sand and wept.

* * *

Seated in the rear compartment of the T-Jet, Cyborg (who hated the name "Icarus") fumbled with a tiny metal pick and swallowed a host of choice curses as the pick scattered off his armored kneecap. One of them slipped loose: "Son of a bitch!" he snapped, and tossed the pick against the sealed hatch. 

The airtight door clanged, and then slid aside. Tek stood on the other side, jumping back as the pick clattered across the deck and back to Cyborg's feet. When she saw him, she hesitated, and then stammered nasally, "I'm sorry. I just...I wanted to find a tissue, or something."

Cyborg spied her swollen eyes and glistening nose. Disgusted guilt sparked in his chest as he looked away. "C'mon in," he muttered. "There are supplies in the wall compartments. Think there's some Kleenex in there somewhere."

Tek nodded and sniffed. Eyes away from Cyborg, she crossed the compartment and began opening the magnetically sealed compartments built above the wall's bench seating. Cyborg watched her a moment. When he found himself oddly enticed by the shape and movement of her tight blue swimsuit, he ducked his gaze and his hand to the dropped pick, and then set about trying to work it into the miniscule gap in his knee. The sharp metal point slid off his leg again, prompting his shout of, "Damn it!"

Tissue box discovered, Tek glanced back at Cyborg's frustration. She watched him slam the pick onto the bench over the edge of her tissue. After a long, honking exhale, she wiped her nose and asked, "Are you okay?"

The look he shot her could have melted her, armor and all. "It's nothing. That volleyball game just broke one of the seals in my joint."

"It sounds serious," she said, falling into the opposite bench.

Cyborg preoccupied himself with his knee, unable to stomach the sight of her concern. "It's not," he grunted. "Been meaning to swap out those old seals for a while now. Just gotta clean some sand out. And I can't go swimming now...as if I could anyway," he added bitterly.

She watched him try and fail with the pick again, remaining silent. When he gripped the tool hard in the verge of swearing again, she said, "Could I...? I mean, you look like you could use some help."

"It's the angle," he said. "I can't get at it without taking my leg off, and that could take hours."

A curious sense of bravery overcame Tek as she watched Cyborg struggle with his leg. That which had terrified her before now seemed helpless. Human. She stepped up and took the pick from his hand, surprising him. "Tell me what to do," she told him.

Cyborg blinked, scowled, and blinked again. Finally, he slumped back against the bench. "Fine. Work the pick until you've got the tip into the internal joint."

"Okay." Tek jiggled the slender handle gently. Her eyes flickered to Cyborg's defeated face as the sound of metal clacking on metal guided her efforts. She might never again have Cyborg at her mercy, and so she asked in a tiny voice, "Why do you hate me?"

It was as though she had sent pure electricity shooting through him. "What?" he snapped?

She stopped and looked straight into his asymmetrical eyes. "Why? You tense up whenever I'm around. You yell at me every chance you get. You don't want me on the team." In a low, steady voice that in no way reflected the fearful chaos inside her, she said, "I just don't know why."

"I don't hate you," he said.

"You do."

"I don't."

"Then why—" Tek frowned. "Our powers are so alike, I guess I just thought—"

"I'm jealous of you!" shouted Cyborg.

He seemed surprised at his own revelation, but Tek was floored. She left the pick hanging in his leg and stared up at him, falling back onto the deck. "Jealous?" she asked in a mouse's voice.

Cyborg rubbed his temple and grimaced. There was no turning back now. "Yes," he said. "God, yes."

The idea seemed anathema to Tek. Even she felt sorry for herself, and could see the pathetic wreck that was her life by comparison to any one of the other Titans. But to hear that from Cyborg, of all people? "But...but why?" she asked.

He caught her eyes, feeling childish and petty in the face of his bitterness aloud. "Look at you," he told her. "You're strong, tough...probably more than me. And you've got enough firepower to make a battleship jealous. And you can whisk it all away like some bad memory. I feel like..." He sighed. "I feel like you're what I'm supposed to be. What I should be."

Tek rubbed the reddened skin of her arm, kneading the soft flesh as she wondered what it would feel like as pseudo-musculature and armor. Her hand brushed against the heavy bandana that fell into her eyes and covered her hair, and looked up at the bare half a scalp Cyborg had left.

"Less than half of me is actual person," he said, looking down at the plating over his chest. "Every time I take a hit, I lose more of it. I was just getting used to that with the Titans, and then along you come, with everything I can offer and more, except removable." Cyborg swallowed, and was glad he didn't have the courage to look at Tek. "You're lucky," he told her.

The bench next to him squeaked softly with a hundred pounds of timid courage. He felt her arm brush his shoulder, and heard her say, "You're the lucky one."

Cyborg snorted. "Oh, yeah. I'm sure you're just busting out of that ugly swimsuit with jealousy."

"Seriously," she insisted, shaking his arm. "I mean, I know just about everything there is to know about you." At his incredulous look, she smiled wanly, and tapped her skull. "Weirdo living hero encyclopedia, remember? I know all of the Titans inside-out, and you, Vic Stone, are the lucky one of the bunch. You had a family. A real, whole family that loved you, and you had them longer than the rest of us combined had ours." Her lips fell, and then her eyes followed. "When I woke up in a dumpster, all I had was a big mean guy who didn't have the decency to wait until I finished puking my guts out to kill me."

She stared at the deck until a soft chuckle drew her gaze back up. Cyborg's sarcastic smirk waited above her. "Well, at least you can grow hair," he said, nodding to her hooded head. She ducked shamefully and blushed, but Cyborg wouldn't be deterred by her embarrassment. He reached for the cloth, saying, "Which you've been covering up all day. What's the deal?"

"No, don't!" Tek sniveled, and ducked from his fingers. She clutched the bandana to her head and looked down, red-faced. "Tara made me get a haircut for the trip, and it looks stupid. I'm just going to wear this thing until I get old and grey, and it all falls out."

Cyborg snatched the end of her bandana between his fingers, and waited patiently until she lowered her hands in defeat. "Get over yourself," he said. With a smile, he added, "And that's coming from an honest-to-goodness chrome dome." He pulled the bandana from her head while she giggled, and then returned her smile. Whatever stylist Terra had thrust upon Tek had done their job well; the short mess of coal hair Cyborg remembered had been tamed into a close-cropped pixie cut, framing her head and transforming her from a beleaguered moper into a disgustingly cute girl. "There now," he said, flicking the curl of hair on her forehead. "You look fine."

Stars envied the brightness of Tek's smile. She reached up and touched the metal half of his face, sobering his smile. "So do you," she said.

The moment went long, making Cyborg's laughter return. "Aren't we a pair?" he asked. Then, stilling, he added, "Look, I'm sorry about all the crap I've been giving you. Can we maybe start over?"

Her smile remained, answering him. "Fresh starts are kind of my thing," she said.

He extended a hand. "Name's Vic Stone. Glad to meet you."

She shook his hand. "Likewise. I...don't really know who I am."

"We'll figure that out," he told her. With a nod to his knee, he asked, "Do you think you could take another crack at this?"

"Only if you talk me through," said Tek. She crouched before him and took up the pick, squinting at the complex knee. "Sometimes I feel like I'm all thumbs."

The hatch swooshed open again, allowing in a sight which stopped Cyborg and Tek's joint venture in a fit of giggles. Cyborg nearly snapped the pick in half as he slapped his knee. "What happened to you?" he asked between guffaws.

Beast Boy glowered and hoisted a towel higher around his waist. The hatch snapped shut behind him, billowing the towel wrap around his bare green legs. "I had to gopher my way through about four feet of sand and lost my shorts," he grumbled. "Can you believe that Robin wouldn't shell out the thousands of dollars for trunks that could morph with me?"

"Easily," said Cyborg, still chuckling. He threw his thumb at another hatch set into the other end of the compartment. "I think there's some spares left. Bags are in the cockpit. Careful, though. Raven is, too."

With slapping footsteps and plenty of grumbling, Beast Boy stalked to the cockpit hatch and slapped its control. The small compartment revealed itself behind the sliding door, pouring sunlight into the Icarus through its broad view port. Raven lay in the pilot seat with a musty leather-bound in her lap and a pile of bags beneath her feet on the copilot seat.

Raven barely looked up at him as the hatch closed. "Nice towel," she said into her book.

"Thanks," he said. "Nice sarong."

"What sarong?"

"Nothing," he said with a toothy grin. "What's-a-wrong wi'chyoo?"

She stared at him for a long moment before delving back into the sanctuary of her book. "Charming," she said. "Now go be naked and obnoxious somewhere else."

It took a herculean effort for Beast Boy to pull the bag out from underneath Raven's unmovable feet and still keep his towel. Once he'd stumbled back with a bag in tow, he plumbed its zippered depths and came back with a set of Cyborg-sized trunks, complete with circuit pattern. Shrugging, he shrank into a tiny tree frog and hopped into the trunks, reemerging as a humanoid while his towel fell, abandoned. The suit hung down to his calves, and required a hand to keep its immense waist around his miniscule hips.

"Y'know," he said as he yanked the cords of his trunks, "We could use a hand getting the fun back on track out there."

A snort came back from behind the book. "Asking me to help you jumpstart the lame vacation you forced me to come on. Another brilliant idea from the Village Idiot. Bye-bye, now." She shifted in her seat, turning away from him. The back of her hood masked her scowl. "Don't let the door hit you, and all that."

The bountiful wealth of Beast Boy's good humor ran dry at that very moment. He tied the cords of his trunks with terrible fury and then lorded himself over Raven, managing to draw half a look from the sorceress. "Why are you even here?" he demanded.

"I told you," she said, rolling back over. "You made me come."

Raven dropped her book in shock as Beast Boy spun her chair around to face his elfin attempt at fury. "I mean, why are you even a Titan?" he demanded of her startled anger.

She scowled. "Excuse me?"

"I've been buried and volley-bashed by crazy super chicks today," he said in her face, "But you still take the crazy cake. You brood in your little cave of a room, sniping at all of us with your little book-smarmy comments and your long, poofy cape. You keep saying how you don't wanna be here, but you haven't 'ported away. You wanna know what I think?"

Raven stood up, looming over him with a dark glare. "Seeing as how it's such a rarity, why not?" she said coolly.

"I think you like us," he shot. "I think you secretly love being a Titan, and you love having friends around. You just want friends on your own terms, is all. And when it isn't on your terms, you go all frigid-bitch on us."

The air grew thick with shadowy cold. "And?" she asked.

Beast Boy glared. "Friendship is a two-way street, Raven. I've snored my ay through enough of your boring museum trips and lost enough clean boxers to those creepy movies you like to know that." He picked up the duffel bag and turned it over in his hands, watching the dangerous tic in her eyebrow carefully. "All we wanted was to do something we like _with_ you. If that's a crime, then just go home and save us the headache. But if you want to be our friend, then quit sulking, put on the suit that Kory spent hours picking out for you, and come get sunburned like the rest of us."

Raven caught the duffel as he threw it into her chest. It bowled her back into her seat, as his tongue-lashing had left her bewildered. Where on Earth did that little twerp get off lecturing her on friendship? She knew how to be a friend! "Beast Boy..." she said.

"Gar." That single syllable cut her to the quick as he reached for the door control. "Bad guys call me Beast Boy. Teammates call me Beast Boy. My friends call me Gar."

And with that, he stepped through the door, leaving Raven utterly alone.

* * *

Warm, radiant colors pooled into the sky, cradling the sun as it settled into far-off waters for another night. Starfire watched the artful work of nature with no sense of the joy she remembered once having. All of her internet research into Earth beach culture had revealed that the bikini normally elicited joyous (or strangely constipated) expressions in the women who donned them. The hangdog look on Starfire's face made her feel foolish as well as sad while wearing her own bikini. Clearly, she had failed at yet another aspect of earthlingness. 

Tomorrow they would be back at the Tower, and things would be the same as they had been yesterday. They would be worse, because she had been foolish enough to confess that stream of babble to Robin. He had spoken truthfully: she had treated him horribly because she loved the boy beneath the Robin, someone she could never have, and so had punished Robin for her frustrations. And now she had destroyed their friendship in a childish fit of resentment.

Starfire sighed, feeling lonelier than she'd ever felt on Earth.

A flap of fabric struck the sandbar before her, curling on the wet sand. Bare, white eyes stared up at Starfire from the ground, stealing her breath away as she heard a quiet voice behind her: "My name is Tim."

Starfire picked up the mask. She'd never actually touched it. The cool fabric felt nothing like she thought it would, reminding her of foil more than of cloth. It glistened in the waning day, picking up all the colors of the sunset. Starfire turned the flexible lenses in her hands, using their glossy surface to catch the reflection of a figure standing behind her.

"I...I don't really know what you want to know about me," the figure said. "I don't eat lima beans. I can't dance. Oh, and I have no idea what the appeal of freeform jazz is." Drawing a deep, shaky breath, he continued, "And I'm absolutely certain that the best thing I ever did was to move across the country and pick a fight with an escaped alien slave girl, because I didn't know what I was missing until I met her. She challenges me every day to look at everything in a new way. She's more beautiful and bright and fun and better than anyone I've ever met. She's the only person that makes my knees weak and my head light."

The mask fluttered from Starfire's limp fingers, falling forgotten onto the sand.

"Now, you tell me," heard Starfire, "Who would you be if you were trying to impress that girl? Would you be a super hero? Or would you be the lima-hating, no-dancing nobody?"

Starfire spun in time to see a boy in Robin's beachwear take off from the sandbar. She grasped his foot and pulled him back to the ground, settling him before her with an iron grip on his shoulders. A crop of dark, unruly hair fell over his brow, obscuring his downcast eyes. So she reached up and brushed the locks away. Crystal blue trepidation waited for her in his face, telling her everything she needed to know in the space of her pounding heartbeat.

"It is glorious to meet you at last, Tim," she breathed, and took his lips into hers.

Tim's head swam in shock. Too dizzy to kiss back, he stumbled and broke the kiss with a gasp. Only Starfire's deft hand kept him on his feet. "Hold on," he exclaimed, crushing his eyes with his brow at the smiling Starfire. "Two seconds ago, we were all screwed up. We haven't spoken in months. Then I go and make an idiot of myself with that asinine speech, and suddenly we're..."

Starfire smoothed his forehead with a soft touch. "We will have much talking before us to determine the status of our union," she assured him. "But I would point out one detail to counter your protest: you are on a deserted island where no one may see you, alone with a girl for whom you possess strong feelings...a girl who shares your feelings, and is eager to make up for wasted time."

Starting at her wriggling toes, Tim took stock of every exposed inch of Starfire, ending with the dancing lights in her eyes. The taut lines of her top swelled as she swooned in his embrace. She giggled as he shook his head and said, "I completely don't understand girls."

"Neither do I," she said.

Then there was nothing left to say.

* * *

Tek popped a marshmallow onto the end of a slender stick and smiled. When they'd first arrived, she'd felt uncomfortable in the boundless island seascape. It had made her homesick for the city horizon she'd been born into. But now that the sun had set, it was just her, her friends, their billion-dollar jet, a campfire, and a ceiling of stars more brilliant than she ever could have imagined. "This is so much fun," she said, plunging her marshmallow into the fire. 

"What are you doing?" Cyborg grabbed her hand and pulled the stick back. He blew the flaming stick out while she stared incredulously. Breaking the gooey mass off, he threw the charred treat aside and speared a pair of new marshmallows. "You have to find a patch of hot embers and toast it golden brown, not torch it. Here," he said, nodding at the food bag as he eased the mallow pair into the campfire's stone ring. "Find the chocolate and crackers. We're making s'mores."

"Okay," Tek answered brightly. She'd made it halfway to the bag before she stopped and turned. "What's 's'mores?'" she asked.

Cyborg just grinned. "I have much to teach you," he said.

Three feet and a million miles away, Beast Boy sighed and leaned on his knees as he stared into the fire. His miserable sighing continued, regardless of the dirty looks his friends shot him. As he sighed again, a sandy marshmallow struck him in the forehead. He tracked its trajectory back to its origin and glared.

"Will you knock that huffing off?" Tim said through an immense grin. "You're going to put the fire out if you keep that up."

Beast Boy sniffed disdainfully, first at the cross-legged Tim, and then at the gorgeous head of fiery hair resting in his lap. The shapely body projecting from the head in a curve around the fire's warmth distracted Beast Boy only a second. "Seriously, dude. Put the mask back on. You with pupils is too creepy to deal with."

Eyes closed, Starfire patted her pillow and said, "He is exactly as he should be."

Another sigh died in Beast Boy's chest as a wave of long hair teased the back of his neck. A familiar fragrance wafted through his nose, exciting his heart. He felt a kiss on his scalp before Terra settled down onto the sand beside him. "Don't mind Gar," she said, passing him a soda identical to her own. "He's just pouting because he misplaced his hot blonde. But don't worry." She leaned in and kissed is bewildered cheek. "I found her."

"Tara!" Beast Boy fumbled with the soda, finally deciding to put it down. He grasped her hand as though he feared she would up and vanish. "I..." He lowered his voice and leaned in. "I thought you were mad at me."

She shrugged and kissed his lips. "I was. You're an idiot. I got over it," she told him brightly. At his continued confusion, she smiled and laughed. "Did you think I'd stay mad forever? You don't know much about girls, do you?"

"He's not alone," Tim announced. Starfire giggled and rose, resting her head on his chest as she embraced him.

"Amen," said Cyborg, lifting his marshmallows in salute.

"Clueless boys," Raven's voice said from outside their circle. "Gosh, how could I miss so much in only one day?"

No one retorted. They stared instead, transforming her stony demeanor into mild fluster as she stood barefoot upon the sand. She felt their eyes scour the curve of her halterkini, a shoulder-bearing, eye-rebuffing wrap that looped around her neck and left her back bare. A gossamer sarong swung around her elegant legs, obscuring their delicate tone. Neither garment did much to mask her unearthly beauty or her embarrassment. She silently wished for a hood in which to hide as she propped a fist on her hip and tried to recapture their fear with a look. "What?" she grunted.

After a long, uncomfortable moment, Beast Boy stuck his fingers in his mouth and struck her with a wolfish whistle. "Aow-aoowwwww!" he howled, earning him a playful slap from Terra and a laugh from everybody else.

"Shut up, Garfield." Raven grumbled and blushed, seating herself as far from him as possible.

Raven accepted a soda from Tek, missing the slow, small smile that blossomed out of Beast Boy's theatrical. "It's a start," he murmured.

Having not missed his smile, Terra grabbed the waist of Beast Boy's enormous trunks. "If you'll excuse us," she announced loudly, "Gar and I need to have a serious tropical make-out session behind the jet."

Before they could scamper off, Cyborg cleared his throat loudly and stood. "Before that travesty happens, I'd like to propose a toast." He coaxed the rest to their feet, lifted his soda high over the fire, and said, "To us." He caught Tek's eye and smiled, adding, "May we keep our friendship strong forever."

"Here, here," said Tim, and squeezed Starfire's hand.

"Amen," said Beast Boy, clinking glasses with a reluctant Raven.

Terra smiled. "Forever," she said.

**The End**

* * *

There it is. Beach Blanket Blitz: double-sized and carmelized for your reading pleasure. I've wanted to write this one since I started this story all those years ago, and now I finally got through it. Yahoo! On to the next one! 

Actually, I have to warn you, the next chapter might not be for a few weeks. It turns out that, in order to graduate with a degree, my college wants me to write some sort of thesis. So, while I'm looking up the word "thesis" in the dictionary, please feel free to go back and reread previous chapters, looking for clues to future storylines and speculating rampantly about what's to come for our heroes. Until the next time, dear readers!

**NEXT: DATE NIGHT**

(Will it be as sappy as this story? Stay tuned to find out!)


	29. Date Night: Couples

_All-Purpose Disclaimer_

**Teen Titans** is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Cartoon Network Inc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit and purely for entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, not to be reproduced without prior consent. Additional information used in creating **Teen Titans: Avatar** courtesy of Titans Tower Online.

* * *

The flat monitor froze Terra with its single, unblinking red eye piercing through the matte black screen of an untraceable connection. Its critical gaze from the top of her coffee table pressed her back into the folds of a worn, secondhand couch, a necessary purchase made with Beast Boy's help after the extravagance of her brand new furnishings had become unbearable. But even the rough and slightly odorous upholstery could not comfort her as it usually did; her worry, as she eyed the plain paper package beside the computer, was absolute. 

"You have received it?" The computer spoke in a scrambled, artificial façade of the human voice on the other end. She would have traded every small comfort she had in the Tower to hear his true voice. Surely hearing his voice would defeat all the doubt and anxiety left in her.

Leaning forward, Terra reopened the package and drew out a small, polished stone. Its deep black color belied volcanic origins. The only breach in the stone's flawless surface was a single, elegant symbol carved into its face. Terra had never seen the symbol before, and understood its function only because the scrambled voice had explained it to her. "Yes," she said.

"Good," the voice said, while its circular eye drilled deeper into Terra. "Their sorceress will not detect it in time. Activate it with a drop of your blood, and then hide it."

Terra turned the stone over in her palm, gazing into the great distance under its glistening skin. The sheer emptiness she found therein stole the anxiety from her spirit, as though her negative emotions tried to fill its void. She shivered as that void spilled into her in return. The stone vanished as she gripped it hard in her fist, forcing her eyes up. This close to the end, she couldn't afford to succumb to a sudden case of nerves.

But then her eyes found something else to fuel her concern.

"The operation will begin in one hour. All other units are standing by. Do you understand your part?"

"Yes," whispered Terra. She stared across her room, overlooking the unblinking monitor for the picture on her nightstand.

There was a brief pause. Then the voice said, "This is what we've been working toward. Simply follow the plan, and everything will be fine. Be careful."

Terra stood and crossed the room as the computer's red eye blinked out. Their plans, months in the making, had been drilled into her every which way. She didn't need to hear it again; it made her think that he had no faith in her. That made her nervous again.

More anxiety flitted from the open door of her closet, upon which a long plastic bag hung. Inside the bag was a beautiful red evening gown, an expensive delight she'd bought with Titan money for her plans tonight with Beast Boy. Its low neck and generous slit flattered Terra in all the right ways (while hiding her knobby knees), and was sure to grab the eyeballs right out of her changeling's sockets.

She fingered the black plastic a moment before continuing across the room to her original point of focus: the nightstand photo. The remembrance of her true plans that night chased away all thoughts of the evening gown as she sat upon her bed and lifted the framed photo. Two teenagers, one green and one pale, gave her dopey grins as they sat atop a rock next to Titan Island's frozen seaside. "I'm sure about this," she told the photogenic pair, wondering if she sounded more convincing to them than she did to herself. Her whole life, she hadn't been sure of anything. Even after the months of planning, she still wasn't sure. She was never sure. She had suffered too much heartache and disappointment for that.

Her eyes fell into the smiling green face. She couldn't help but smile back. Even as a photo, Beast Boy never failed to elicit a smile from her gloomiest of moods. Resting her head against the top edge  
of the photo's frame, she heaved a sigh that fogged its glass, and asked, "What am I gonna do with you, Garfield?"

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Date Night**: _Couples_

"When there's babeage, you know who's to blame... It's Beast Boy! Ladies think the other guys are lame... They love Beast Boy! Doo-dee-doo-doo, something like that! Doo-dee-dah, doo-doo bikini strap!"

Robin clenched his eyes shut and prayed for an aneurysm to end his suffering. Tightening the lines of his suit jacket, he turned from the full-length mirror of his closet door and glared daggers into the back of an emerald crop of hair. "Gar, honest to God, if you don't stop singing that stupid song, I can't be held responsible for the consequences," he said slowly and calmly.

A nervous expression seated atop its own pressed suit turned to smile back at him. "Sorry, Robin," he said. Chuckling, he ran a hand across his scalp, ruining the effort that Robin and two tubes of gel had put into making his 'do presentable. "I guess I'm still a little nervous about this whole 'date' thing, y'know?"

Finished with his suit, Robin took pity on his comrade and went to his aid. A few deft tugs tamed the bow tie at Beast Boy's neck. Then they tackled his crow's nest with a comb. "Just relax," Robin told him. "That's why we're doing doubles tonight. If conversation starts to run dry between you two, Kory and I will be right there to pitch in."

"Thanks," said Beast Boy. "I feel a lot better about this with you guys there. You must have a lot of experience with this stuff, huh?"

Thinking, Robin turned back to his desk and poked at the pair of professionally plucked bouquets they had ordered for their respective ladies. In a measured voice, he said, "There was one time. Early in my sidekick days, I met this girl. She couldn't remember who she was, so I named her Annie. After the doll."

Beast Boy craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of the Teen Wonder's inscrutable face. "What? Things didn't work out?" he asked.

"She wound up being a piece of Clayface. He reabsorbed her."

A sour expression swallowed Beast Boy's nervous smile. "So, the best advice you have is..."

Robin turned with a wan smile. "Don't let a mud monster eat your girl," he said.

The points of Beast Boy's ears dipped, and then jumped at the knock on Robin's door. Beast Boy caught his bouquet as Robin threw it and took up his own. Together, they rushed to the door. An identical breath lifted their shoulders to slow the racing of their hearts. Then Robin touched the door control and painted a wide smile on his face to greet their dates.

"Hey guys," said Terra. She stood opposite them in the hall, folding her arms across a rumpled uniform she'd pilfered from her hamper. Her eyes lingered on Beast Boy, swallowing whole the delicious sight of his formalwear. Then she looked back up and said, "Change of plans. Gar and I are painting the town red on our own. Tim, you and Kory will have to fly solo tonight." Glancing back to Beast Boy, she said, "Now, let's get you out of those clothes."

Beast Boy looked from an insistent Terra to a smug Robin. "Wait. What?" His heart raced once again. He stumbled forward as Terra snagged his arm and dragged him down the hall. "But...dinner?"

Robin felt doubly glad as he waved them off. Now Beast Boy wouldn't be stuck in a four-star restaurant wondering what fork to use, and he could enjoy a night alone with Starfire. "Have fun, guys!" he called. Then, frowning, he asked, "Is Kory ready?"

"Don't know," Terra called back. "Haven't seen her since this afternoon. She with Raven?"

"No," Robin said, more to himself than to Terra. "She and Tek left for town a while ago."

Terra had just dragged Beast Boy around the corner when she popped her head back in time to turn Robin with a shout. "Tim?" she called. When he glanced back, she traced a path around her eyes. "You might want to ditch the raccoon look. You know how Kory feels about it."

Robin touched his face as she vanished around the corner again with Beast Boy in tow. The smooth, cool edge of his mask met his fingers just above his cheek. He blinked. Had he been wearing the mask this whole time?

* * *

"Definitely the green one. It matches your eyes." 

Starfire smiled and took the jade hairclip from her vanity dresser. Gathering her scarlet hair, she closed the clasp, pinning her locks up in an elegant fold. The silky fire trailed from her clip and over her shoulder, spilling onto the strap of her shimmering black evening gown. A deep breath tested the low neckline of her dress as she sighed with satisfaction at her reflection. "A most excellent choice," she said.

"Well, duh," said Cyborg, standing behind her chair at her vanity dresser. He watched her examine the tight lines of her dress with a smile. It had been a good long while since he'd seen her so happy. "Now, let's talk about the rest of your accessories," he said.

"You are very kind to help me in my preparations, Vic," she said, while they perused her expansive collection of jewelry. "Surely you have other activities you would rather perform."

He pointed to earrings that would compliment the Centauren moon diamond draped from her neck. "As if there's anything more important than this," he said. "Now, remember, silverware goes from outside to in, bread is the only thing you eat with your hands, napkins go in your lap and not on your head, and don't give him anything on the first date." She giggled and pinned her ears with emeralds as he insisted, "Make him earn every inch."

Starfire stood and turned, showing them both the final product. Her golden skin glowed with excitement. "Thank you, Victor," she gushed, floating up to kiss his cheek. Adopting a concerned expression, she asked, "You are certain you do not wish to accompany us? I must confess that I do not like the notion of you remaining alone in the Tower whilst the remainder of us are cavorting the city."

Cyborg snorted. "Come with you guys so I can be Mister Fifth Wheel? Thanks, but I'd rather chill here than play referee for all that tonsil hockey y'all have planned. Besides," he said, "You and Timmy-boy need some real couple time."

The stars in her eyes blinded Starfire to Cyborg's sour look. "Yes," she breathed. "I am most excited to at last begin 'The Dating' with Tim." It had been weeks since their fateful tropical confession. She'd hardly had two minutes alone with Robin in all that time. His investigations into Slade's activities had left him all but a ghost around the Tower, but his sincerity on the sandbar had rekindled her hope. Now, on a night of his suggesting, she hoped to truly launch something special between them.

A cold metal hand pressed on her shoulder, settling her strappy high heels back to the floor. Cyborg took her other shoulder, curbing her glee with a somber look. "Yeah...Kory, have you noticed anything odd about Robin?"

Her delicate beauty crinkled. "I do not understand your meaning. Is something the matter with Tim?" she asked, growing concerned.

"I just..." Cyborg struggled to voice his concerns. He had yet to find one iota of concrete evidence to back his theory. "Be careful tonight, okay?" he asked. "For me."

She smiled and patt3ed his cheek. "Your concern is unfounded, but appreciated," she told him. "Tim and I will be fine."

He wanted to say more, but a knock at her door broke the conversation. Starfire sped to the door, a living blur of black against the pinks and purples of her room, and pounded the door control. It split apart, revealing crystal blue eyes that ate her loveliness alive.

"Wow," Tim whispered, forgetting the eight different lines he'd rehearsed in the hall. Luckily, Starfire stared adoringly into his eyes, giving his gaze an abundance of time to traverse the curve of her dress up to the brilliant smile waiting for him. "You look...I mean, you're very..."

Starfire took the bouquet from his limp hand before he dropped it. "Thank you," she said. "I return your sentiment in kind." She drew a long, fragrant breath from the flowers. "These are most beautiful. Thank you," she said again.

Tim watched her add the bouquet to a vase of fresh flowers she kept by her beside. "Beautiful," he echoed dumbly. Only a loud and awkward cough from Cyborg ended the hypnotic spell of her swaying hips. "Huh? Oh, Vic. Didn't see you there."

The towering mass of muscle and armor snorted. "Yeah," said Cyborg. "I noticed." As Starfire finished her floral arrangement, he made a series of silent gestures to Tim that indicated it was in his best interests to keep his eyes high and his hands clean that night.

"Well," said Starfire, startling both boys straight as she stood and gathered her purse. "Shall we go?"

She offered her hand to Tim, who took it gladly. But the touch of her golden skin sparked a sudden realization in him. "Oh, wait a minute. Don't forget your watch, Kory."

"Oh. Of course." Starfire returned to her dresser and drew out her slim, silvery watch. A touch of her fingertips activated the device, draining the gold from her pallor and leaving a pale, milky white. Pearly color swallowed her eyes, sparing only her irises, while faux red sprouted across her forehead from her shapely dotted brows. Now the model of earthly beauty, she asked, "So?"

"Much better," said Tim. He took her arm in hand and led her to the door with a gentlemanly air. "Don't wait up, Vic."

Cyborg knew it was now or never. "Say, Tim," he said in his best impersonation of a casual voice, "I was wondering if you knew what happened to that upgrade pack I made for Tek's armor. I finished it, and it was sitting in my lab."

Before Cyborg could accuse their leader of thievery, Tim shocked him by shrugging and saying, "Oh, right. I meant to tell you. I took care of that."

Took care of that? Cyborg had built enough hardware into that upgrade pack to level a building in the blink of an eye, and Tim had taken care of it? "So where is it?" Cyborg asked, trying to sound calm.

"I told you," Tim said as he led his adoring date out of her room, "I took care of it. Don't worry about it."

Cyborg couldn't even return Starfire's wave as the pair disappeared through her door. "Sure," he muttered to the empty room. "You kids have fun. I'll just 'take care' of things here."

* * *

Stalking through a maze of high shelves, Raven sought shelter among her one true passion from the persistent ball of anxiety trailing behind her. She buried her hands in the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt and delved deeper into _A Nook for a Book_, which had been rebuilt nicely since its troubles all those months ago. When she realized that no amount of walking would escape the anxious ball, she sighed and said, "It's okay." 

"I'm sorry," Tek said again, following Raven into the Poetry section of the store. She, like Raven, wore civvies in place of her Titan uniform; a loose T-shirt and rumpled jeans hung awkwardly from her gawky body, occasionally tripping her up as she paced the elegant sorceress. Her apologetic face sharply mismatched Raven's scowl. "I'm really, really sorry."

"I don't care," growled Raven. She tore a book from the shelves at random and thrust her nose between its pages, never caring to read it so long as it hid her scowl from her temperamental teammate.

Hands wringing, lip-biting, Tek hesitated at the aura of cold emanating from Raven's shoulder. "It's just that I've never been to a poetry club before," Tek said, deepening the hunch of Raven's posture. "You left our table to get us those waters, and then this other guy said that first-timers had to..." Sorrow twisted the pale and dark makeup of her face, a cake of insta-goth hastily applied to her features by the club's resident jokers before they had thrust Tek upon the stage. "I didn't mean to embarrass you. I just tried thinking of words you use, and—"

Raven held up a hand, still refusing to meet Tek's eye. Even now, she had a hard time keeping Tek's haunting improvised ballad, "Cyborg Ate My Last Slice of Pie," from rotting her insides. "Just...don't worry about it," Raven said through her teeth. "Poetry isn't for everyone."

Tek whined, "I just—"

The wafer-thin remnants of Raven's patience surrendered and shattered. "If you feel that bad about it, why don't you just go get me a coffee?" Raven said slowly, measuring each word. Raven knew her naïve teammate was only trying to endear herself to everyone around her out of some pathological need to be liked. But Raven also knew that one more second of listening to that stammered apology would make her seriously reflect on her life choice of heroism over villainy.

Incredulity worked into Tek's apologetic features. "You mean, coffee's all it'll take to make up for humiliating you in front of all your friends?" she asked in a small voice.

Raven yanked her sweatshirt's hood up around her head to hide the tic working through her eye. "Like magic," she said through gritted teeth.

Tek vanished in a heartbeat, whisking through the bookstore to find its coffee bar. The anxiety left in her wake waned, allowing Raven to release the breath of tension she'd kept clutched in her chest. She replaced the book in her hands to its proper place, and then scanned the shelf before her for something interesting. With only the background noise of emotion in the store to deal with, she decided to make good use of the empathic quiet left in Tek's absence.

Raven spied an interesting tome upon the book stack's top shelf, just out of reach. She was about to levitate herself when an arm appeared from behind the blocked peripheral of Raven's hood and plucked the very volume from its place. Raven swiveled her gaze to follow the book, chasing it to the owner of the thieving hand and readying an annoyed glare with which to reclaim her book.

A tall figure stood next to Raven, previously hidden by her upturned hood, and offered her the book on a platter of his porcelain palms. "This was the one you wanted, right?" he asked, lifting the book higher toward her glare. His pale face cracked in a slight smile. "I thought you might need a hand getting it."

She eyed him from soles to smile. He was a lithe frame of relaxed muscle, shifting gracefully beneath a bulky sweatshirt and stained khaki pants. His hands were paler than any she'd seen outside of her own, and remained in an open, generous gesture as she divested them of their book. Shaggy red hair fell across one of his eyes. The other eye, colored like a shimmering emerald, sparkled at her with no notice of her unpleasant look.

A sniff worked through Raven's flared nostrils at the expectant boy, who looked little older than she. Did he expect some kind of reward for picking up a book? Did he think she needed help because she didn't have his strapping height or sinewy muscle? "And you are?" she asked, forcing extra disdain into her voice.

The boy grinned. "I'm Nobody," he said. "Who are you?" Before she could respond, he continued, "Are you Nobody too?" He shocked Raven's eyes wide and tripled his own smile as he took her ashen hands in his. "Then there's a pair of us! Don't tell. They'd advertise...you know."

Raven was mere nanoseconds from telling this stranger where he could stick his verse. But upon his touch, her mind and lungs froze as one. Physical contact overrode a majority of her empathic defenses, bombarding her thoughts with the feelings and impulses of the one she touched. It was why she wore such a heavy cloak, and why she hated being touched.

But upon the merest brush of his skin, Raven felt nothing. Nothing, in absolute, in total. His was a vacuum of emotion, with thoughts and feelings so tightly maintained that she heard nary a whisper of his mind or heart. His silence was so powerful, it drove those ambient feelings that permeated the air—like a thousand different whispers that merged into a constant roar she could never silence—into a sudden and jarring quiet she had never before experienced. For the first time in Raven's life, she heard and felt silence.

Her first impulse was to weep.

"How dreary," Raven replied breathlessly, "To be Somebody. How public, like a frog."

"To tell one's name—the livelong June," the stranger continued. He drew her closer by their collective grasp.

Raven drifted obediently. "To an admiring Bog..." she whispered. Adrift in the stranger's tranquil touch, Raven felt lost and found all at once. She stared up into his gaze, searching for something to say. "Emily Dickenson," was all she could come up with.

"Dominic Smith, actually," he said, pulling back to offer her a shallow bow. Raven kept hold of one of his hands insistently, feeling a pang of panic at the thought of losing the calm she had only now discovered. With a wry look, Dominic added, "Though I'm told the resemblance is uncanny."

A giggle crossed between them. Raven didn't recognize it as her own until she saw Dominic grin again. Her hand flew to her mouth, as though more alien sounds would emerge from her lips. "I meant the poem," she said helplessly.

"I know," he assured her. Staring at her a moment more, he squeezed her hand gently. "You have me at something of a disadvantage, miss," he said amiably. "I've told you my name, but I still don't know yours. There's no way I can let such a beautiful poetry aficionado walk out of here without at least getting her name."

The stillness rang through her, stealing every thought from her head. Her own nervous silence brought rare color to her cheeks. Lost for words, she could only manage a hoarse whisper of her name. Dominic grinned and pulled out a pen, offering it to her. When she took it in confusion, he pantomimed a telephone with his hand. "Oh," she said, "I don't really have a phone."

Dominic responded first with a short laugh, studying her face for signs of jest or a brush-off. Then his gaze widened. "Wait," he said, examining her pale pallor. "You're _that_ Raven? The Teen Titan?" At her meek nod, he scoffed and slapped his forehead with his free hand. "Wow. I am so... This is really embarrassing. I had no idea I was hitting on my favorite super hero, who probably thinks I'm a total sleaze now, and that I'm a spaz, and I'm babbling right now..." He trailed off, rubbing the back of his head. His other hand was still firmly in Raven's tight grasp. "I'll just go."

She felt the tempest of ambient emotion surrounding them spilling back into her as he began to pull away. Like a woman dying of thirst, she clutched his fingers tight and drank of his retreating peace. "No!" she cried, stepping after him. At his surprise, she hesitated. "I mean, no. It's okay. I...I'm your favorite hero?" she asked.

Embarrassment flushed into Dominic's cheeks. "Seriously, I'm sorry. You probably get this kind of thing all the time."

"I don't really get out much," said Raven, looking sheepish. Before she could stop herself, she added, "I might get out more often if I got a reception like this every time."

Raven clapped a hand back over her mouth, renewing the smile on Dominic's face. "Then I hope I'm around the next time you get out. Maybe I can give you a reception without the mindless babbling." Pocketing his pen, he gave her a nod and slipped from her clammy grasp. Raven's ethereal senses squalled with the sudden return of a world of stray emotions that pounded her from every direction. The careless feeling of others deafened Raven as she watched Dominic disappear behind a row of shelves. She couldn't bring her jellied legs to follow him.

As she stood there, stunned in the wake of a mind like none she'd ever encountered, Tek wandered back to her with an armful of balanced cups. She cast a confused look over her shoulder at the tall figure winding away from them, and asked Raven, "Who was that?"

"I don't know," Raven murmured from a world away.

Tek shrugged and began extracting the plethora of coffees from her arms. "Kay. I didn't know what you wanted, so I got you a mocha, a latte, a cappuccino, a chi tea, a mochachino, a cappalatte, and a chi mochachinolatte with an extra shot of espresso."

She pressed one of the cups into Raven's hand. Furious anxiety flooded into Raven at Tek's touch. She choked and pulled away, reasserting her feeble mental walls too late to block the unwelcome feelings. The drink fell between them, striking the floor and vomiting fragrant brown liquid onto Raven's sneakers. Raven rubbed at her temples and ejected the borrowed emotions from her mind, wincing at the piercing headache that followed their passing.

More apology blared from Tek's sorrowful face and into Raven's ethereal barriers. "If you didn't like those, you could have just..." She trailed off as she watched Raven bend over in mental anguish. The sorceress clutched at her head in a manner Tek had never before seen. Her own guilt faded as she crouched after Raven, concerned. "Are you okay?"

Raven released a slow breath as the emotional noise faded to its familiar, manageable din. She straightened and felt the pounding in her head began to lessen. "I'm fine," she said. She tried with all her might to remember the feeling of peace she had drawn from Dominic, never once questioning how he could do something so amazing to her with just a touch. To her dismay, she couldn't quite recall the feeling. It remained out of reach, like the book that had acted as catalyst between them.

"You look pale," said Tek. She made a face, and added, "Paler than usual."

Raven was about to retort when the floor began to quake. Books rained from their shelves, bouncing off the panicked patrons of the store. Earthquakes were common occurrences in Jump City, but rarely did they reach this scale. Raven grasped Tek's hand and dragged her out of the row of shelves toward the front of the store, keeping them both well away from the broad glass windows. "Stay calm," she told Tek. "We just stay out from under falling objects, and we'll be fine."

Tek's eyes bounced as the store rattled around them. Her hands pressed into the crook of her elbow, where she felt the dull sting of an hours-old needle prick. It helped her overcome the icy fear she felt as her inner beast clawed at its tranquilized cage in the throes of the quaking chaos. Then her eyes fell upon the ceiling, and she discovered a new reason to be afraid. "Raven!" she cried, pointing up.

Ready to dismiss Tek's latest concern, Raven gave the ceiling a cursory glance. Then she looked again, scowling at the drywall as it bubbled away, oozing burgundy slime down the walls. The shaking began to subside as more of the slime ate through t he wall. Yellow eyes surfaced in the slime, narrowing immediately on the Titan ladies. A shrill, inhuman screech filled the _Nook_, drawing a wince from Tek and a scowl from Raven.

"I think I recognize this guy from the files," Tek said. She pulled the oversized T-shirt over her head, revealing her teal, open-backed jumpsuit underneath. Shucking her jeans, she asked, "Is this the actor who turned into clay or the sleeping guy made out of toxic waste?"

Raven watched the walls around the ooze darken and decayed in a familiar fashion. Civilians still in the store screamed all around them, too frightened to run away. Raven's head pounded as she drew out her communicator. "This is one unlucky bookstore," she muttered.

* * *

The sound of clacking keys kept Cyborg company, as it had for many nights in recent memory. He hunched over the keyboard of the Titans Tower mainframe, his bleary eyes leveled at the enormous monitor comprising one wall of the Mainframe Room. Coffee steamed beside his keyboard in a mug which promised, "_Instant Human: Just Add Coffee_." Files flew on and off the monitor wall at speeds most humans couldn't follow, displayed in binary so his computerized mind didn't have to bother with the trifle of reading. 

Cyborg bit down on a yawn and flicked on the recording function of his implants with a thought. "Investigation, Day Thirty. Victor Stone recording." The data stream on screen paused while he rubbed his eye, blinking hard. Weeks of searching hadn't revealed much more than circumstantial suspicions, but his perseverance had started to yield results. "I've begun to put together some of the pieces of the puzzle," he said to his phantom listener. "While I have no proof that Robin is a double-agent for Slade, I have discovered several anomalies in his behavior that, coupled with evidence taken from the Mainframe, supports my theory.

"First is a strange series of communications made by Robin over the last few weeks. Robin attempted to delete all records of these communications. Only my brilliant forensic programming skills were able to detect and recover the deleted files." He paused for a self-congratulating smile before continuing both the recording and the streaming data. "I've been unable to trace all but one of the calls made. That call was placed to the Justice League Watchtower in orbit. The nature of the call is unknown."

Scowling at the dancing codes on-screen before him, he said, "Additionally, Robin has been receiving strange materials here at the Tower. I've found receipts for no less than eight deliveries made to the Tower, each of them from different courier services with no return addresses, and each of them signed for by Robin. All attempts to track down the received materials have been unsuccessful."

The chair beneath him creaked in muted protest as Cyborg rose. A sudden and inescapable rumbling had set his stomach aflame. As he had already downloaded the pertinent data from the mainframe, and the recording device was built into him, Cyborg saw no reason not to continue dictating his findings on a quest bound for Ops' bountiful kitchen. "That wouldn't be so bad," he told his recorder, "If those were the only materials unaccounted for. But two more pieces of serious equipment have gone missing. The first I mentioned in my last log: one of the four LexCorp construction drones we use around the Tower for repair and renovation. But a new disappearance has me more worried: the upgrade I designed and built for Tek's armor, designed to interface with the hard-point energy shunts built into it (reference Technical File Six point One). When confronted with the disappearance of the upgrade, Robin confirmed that he had taken it, but refused to reveal where."

A grimace crossed Cyborg's shadowed features. He entered the stairwell and began the long ascent to Ops. Both his footsteps and his voice echoed with an eerie quality through the expansive space. "Robin has been gathering information and equipment, and is frequently and inexplicably absent for long periods of time. While I can't comment on the exact nature of his absences or gathered materials, I suspect that both will be employed against us tactically. Robin has done this before, using the alternate persona of Red X to fight the Titans to a standstill (reference Case File One point Nine)."

He reached Ops, shouldering through its doors and into the equally dark center. His expression dipped further into a scowl. "I'm not going to let him get away with it again. Whether or not Robin has become Slade's Apprentice willingly, I won't let him tear this team apart again."

Cyborg paused the recording. He leaned against the face of their refrigerator and ran a cleansing breath through his world-weary frame. "All this intrigue and exposition is making me hungry," he decided aloud. Sickly yellow light painted his circuitry green as he opened the fridge and plumbed its depths for suitable consumables. In short order, his snack became a team effort: Robin's deli-sliced swiss cheese, Raven's organic cottage bread, Beast Boy's assorted greens, Terra's leftover boneless chicken wings, Starfire's mustard, and Tek's abandoned hot peppers would team up to form the mightiest snack in all the land.

"Nothing calms the nerves like a light snack," Cyborg assured himself. His stack of containers wobbled atop his palm as he pulled out of the fridge. "Makes you forget all your—"

As the last of the light vanished behind the closing fridge door, Cyborg caught a fleeting glimpse of a glare watching him from atop the counter. Scowling, he dropped his food and blinked, switching his optic implants to night vision mode. The room flared bright as day. Then Cyborg's eye bugged.

Try as he might, Cyborg couldn't find a square inch of Ops' shadows that didn't hold a dark, skulking figure. Dull circles of color bisected each of their scowls, which were leveled at Cyborg, and glinted with murder. Now discovered, the roving packs of graceful, silent figures ceased their circling, shifting instead into a slow advance on Cyborg. Every avenue of escape held a dark soldier waiting to catch him. He was cornered.

"...troubles," Cyborg finished. His arm mechamorphed into a sonic cannon and thrummed dangerously. Questions of how his latest security upgrades had failed him fled from the tension of the impending battle. He clenched his knuckles, gritted his teeth, and steeled himself for a rough night.

* * *

Terrified trembling overtook his twiggy frame as the fearsome ratcheting sound dragged him higher. He could practically see eye to eye with clouds, and they were still climbing higher. A thousand different birds flitted through his mind, teasing him in their flight. Their shapes were his to have if only he could concentrate enough to take them. But he was too afraid to show fear in the face of the bright smile at his side, so he gripped the iron bar across his lap and pasted a smile over his terror. 

"Is this a bad time to mention that I sometimes don't do well with heights?" Beast Boy shot sidelong through his teeth.

Terra pulled her gaze back over the edge of their car to give him an incredulous look. "You have to be joking," she said. Her eyes strayed to their ascending track, which their car consumed beneath its undercarriage. In another few seconds, they would reach the top of the track, and the ride would begin. She savored the remaining time with a breathtaking look out across the fair. Tiny thrill seekers milled among the dancing lights and excited screams far below, all of them the size of ants to Terra. The perspective made her smile. "You fly all the time," she said distractedly.

Beast Boy tugged on the "safety" bar holding him down. "Maybe. But that's not when I'm strapped into a screaming metal death trap put together in a day by carnies."

Their car, the first in a long train that trailed along the track behind him, reached the apex with an ominous pause. Terra grasped Beast Boy's hand from the bar and squeezed it tight. "Shut up and scream," she told him, and grinned.

The next two minutes went by in a stomach-tossing blur for Beast Boy. He had prowled the skies as a falcon and ridden in a futuristic jet at speeds the envy of sound, all without a twitch of acknowledgement. But strapped into a quickly constructed roller coaster, Beast Boy screamed himself hoarse, and flailed his free hand as though he were in mortal peril. The bone-jarring jerks of the coaster's path sent his insides tumbling. Only the warm, pink hand wrapped around his pale green knuckles kept him in human shape and in his rattling seat.

Beast Boy wasn't sure when or how they got off the ride. After the blur of g-forces and swirling fairgrounds, he became aware of solid dirt beneath his boots and a soft hand still clutching his. The owner of that hand pumped her free fist as she dragged him through the ride's exit. "That was the best!" she cried, spinning them both.

The lights and sounds of the fair blended around him into a nauseating blur. "Feelin' woozy," he said, and urped.

Terra gave Beast Boy a wry sneer. "Never would have pegged you for such a weenie, Gar," she teased. When her laughing eyes left his greener-than-usual face, they found a crowd of gawkers consolidating from the packed booths and rides of the fair. Her gaze narrowed at the unwelcome attention their Titan uniforms were garnering. Whispers began working through the edge of the crowd, dulling the edge of her good mood. "I'm getting bored with this scene," she said loud enough for the nosy gawkers to hear. "Let's get out of here."

"Nng... Sure," muttered Beast Boy. He rubbed his head and groaned. "Where we goin'?"

One look at his lolling eyes returned Terra's smile. She took Beast Boy's arm and looped it through hers. "Let me worry about the driving, handsome. I wouldn't want to explain a pterodactyl stuck headfirst in some water tower."

The mud at their feet rose in a perfect circle, forming a thick disc that whisked the teens into the air. Their onlookers gasped in appreciation as the pair vanished into the starry night. Still a touch disoriented, Beast Boy wrapped his arms around Terra's slender hips and stayed close. The smooth flight of Terra's earthen pedestal easily bested any roller coaster in his opinion. "No sudden moves, okay?" he asked.

Terra felt his breath tickle her ear, and she blushed. "Long as you promise not to fly away," she said.

City lights shrank with distance as they ascended higher. Soon the world below had faded into a blanket of twinkling lights that mirrored the stars above them. It felt to Terra like they had floated into heaven itself. There, their flight drew to a halt, hanging between worlds with only each other.

"There," she said at last, gazing through the cloudless refuge at their sprawling world. "That's much better."

Gripping the edge of their disc, Beast Boy looked straight down. There was no vertigo to spoil his balance now that he was free to shapeshift as needed. But he did cast an uncertain look at the golden twinkle in Terra's blue eyes. "You can hold us up here?" he asked.

A bashful smile pooled between Terra's dimples. Her hands fidgeted between them, playfully teasing his into her grasp. "I'm not that same dusty little girl you met in Jump Canyon, Gar," she told him.

The disc beneath them quadrupled in size, thinning out to no thicker than half an inch, remaining solid as a rock. She pulled him down on their blanket of earth so they sat eye to eye. Their noses brushed one another at the tips.

"You'd be surprised what I can do," she murmured, and lowered her lips toward his.

A yawn exploded from Beast Boy's mouth at the worst possible moment, chasing Terra's kiss back. She gave him an annoyed look while he finished his yawn. His eyes watched her over the rim of his mouth, brimming with apology. "Sorry," he said sheepishly. "It's not the company, I swear. I just wasn't expecting so much tonight. Shooting pool at that diner, walking through downtown, going to the fair..." Stifling another yawn, he said, "Maybe we should call it a night."

"And waste this view?" she asked. A playful punch to his arm gave him a smile to match hers. "C'mon, the night's still young. Or," he amended, "Maybe the morning is, I dunno. Let's go find some excitement!"

Beast Boy laughed. His guffaws elongated into another yawn. "Seriously, gorgeous, I'm bushed. And Commandant Red Bird is probably going to bust us out of bed in four hours for another surprise combat drill." At her disappointed look, he rubbed her shoulder and said, "Cheer up, cute stuff. I promise this won't be our last night with your emerald Prince Charming. We could even go out tomorrow night, if you want."

Terra's expression sank slowly into solemn stone. She looked down in silence, considering the irrelevant world spread far below them. "And what if we couldn't?" she said. Looking back into his eyes, she asked, "What if we only had tonight?"

His brow crinkled. "Yeah, but we don't. We have all the time we need," he said.

Terra watched his face grow more curious, keeping hers a blank slate. Then, slowly, she leaned into him and kissed him, softly at first, but with a growing need. Her hands found his chest and spread across his ropy muscle as she pressed him to their floating piece of heaven. Her lips became insistent, desperate, parting for her tongue to explore him insatiably.

Shocked at her aggression, Beast Boy broke her kiss. He stared up at her from the flat of his back as she slid her legs around his waist. "Tara, what...uh, what are you..."

Terra's lips silenced him softly. As they kissed, her hand reached down and drew a handful of dirt from their platform. She drew back, capturing his eyes with a soulful look. "My whole life has been one screwed-up disappointment after another," she whispered. "I didn't think I could believe in anything anymore. But I believe in you. I'm sure about you."

She brought her hand up, dirt and all. Her fingertips lifted the edge of his uniform shirt. There, her borrowed dirt elongated and sharpened, arcing beneath his shirt and up his chest into a long, rigid foil. With one swift pull, she split his uniform open, drawing a gasp out of him that made his bare chest heave.

Unable to speak, Beast Boy became a willing victim. Terra bent low to kiss the shallow ravine of his chest. She worked her mouth up his neck and across his jaw until they were face to face once more. Her hands slid down the smooth skin stretched across his ribs and reached the hem of her black, cropped shirt. She dug her fingers into the stretchy material, preparing herself with a penetrating study of Beast Boy's mouth. Then she sat up, and tugged the hem of her shirt past her ribs.

Beast Boy caught her hands, holding them at bay with a kitten's strength. His head spun furiously. With shaking voice, he said, "Tara, I don't know..."

A ravenous hunger spilled from her eyes. "I do," she said, and lifted the clingy fabric over her head.

**To Be Continued**


	30. Date Night: Together

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_by Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Date Night**: _Together_

The fragrant air carried a nip of cold that Starfire rarely felt since arriving in Jump City. It stirred in her reminiscence of the arctic plains of her home planet, Tamaran. Of course, like most of Earth's meteorology, the chill paled in comparison to the harsh conditions of her birth world. Tamaran's bitter colds, scorching heat, and fierce winds had produced a strong resilience in her people. The weather of Earth hardly warranted her mention, and never bothered her in the slightest. But Starfire didn't breathe a word of this when Tim offered her his jacket. She merely shivered in delight as he draped the fabric over her slender shoulders, and clutched it tight over her slinky dress.

She and Tim strolled along the path of Jump Park, perfectly comfortable to brave the weak light of the park lamps and the moonlight filtered through smog. Starfire had shucked her high heels into her purse, and strode barefoot alongside Tim's mirror-shined shoes. Her arm hung in his, their fingers intertwined. Stubborn and vibrant leaves clung to the trees around them in a canopy of color for them to walk beneath. The breeze smelled sweet as it kissed their smiles. Try though she might, Starfire couldn't imagine a more perfect moment.

A park bench waited for them around a bend in the path. Starfire pulled Tim down onto the mottled wooden seat and wrapped his arm across her shoulders. Her own arm slipped around his waist, keeping him close, as though she feared this were a dream about to vanish. "Please, let me thank you once more for dinner," she said, and leaned her head against his. "I have never seen such finery outside of my family's court."

"Heh. Best two hundred dollars I ever spent," Tim said, and ignored the small part of him that mourned for their budget. His bare eyes drifted up as he immersed himself in the moment. Only the brightest stars could pierce the dull haze of light hovering over their city. He gazed up at them and thanked each one for the gift holding his hand. For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, Tim felt happy to his very core. Only one small part of him rebelled against the peace, and it was easily ignored in the fog Starfire sent through his mind with her simple touch. "This has been a really nice night," he said.

A languid rumble rose from Starfire's throat. Her head worked its way to his shoulder, where she purred again. Her grasp became massaging, kneading the taut flesh of his ribs in a lazy exploration of his chest. The holographic human pink of her cheeks deepened into an excited red.

Tim's smile softened once she'd settled against him, and sighed at her fingertips' work. "It's beautiful out tonight," remarked Tim, who was unsatisfied with the silence. They had spent so long not talking to each other, he felt a strong need to make up for the time lost. "I could stay out here all night just sitting with you," he confessed.

Starfire moved like liquid lightning. Her sly smile hovered in front of his face before he even felt her weight leave his side. "But I cannot," she told him, spilling hot breath over his face.

Their lips crashed in mutual desire. Tim's hands found her hips and pulled him onto his lap as Starfire ran her hands through his hair. She broke from him only long enough for a sensuous breath that swelled her chest into his. Then she poured herself into Tim, pressing herself to his muscular build and savoring ever thrill her senses drew out of him.

A mild tremor rattled their bench, breaking their kiss again. Starfire clutched Tim's neck and kept their lips a hair's breadth apart. "Tim," she murmured, "Did you feel that? The Earth moved."

"Funny," he said, furrowing his brow. "That's not supposed to happen until later."

Another tremor came, clattering the joints of their bench. The pair rose from their seat and wondered at the intermittent quakes with curious glances about their surroundings. The quakes came too rhythmically to be natural. And as a third tremor shook through their feet, they knew the quakes were growing in intensity. Tim's eyes scanned the darkened thicket as his practiced suspicions awakened.

Despite his attention, Starfire spotted it first. "Tim, there!" she cried, pointing behind him.

Tim whirled around as another tremor tore through the ground. A small grove of trees planted off the path crackled and bent, breaking apart as a pair of stone hands pushed their thick trunks aside. The venerable trees toppled aside, revealing Cinderblock as he stomped into view. He bent at the waist, lowering his red gaze down at the teenaged couple. Gravelly rumbling drifted through the crack of the gray leviathan's mouth. Thunder erupted from his knuckles as he clenched his fists at them.

Starfire crouched to leap into the air, but froze at the hand Tim clamped on her shoulder. He gave her a nigh-imperceptible shake of his head before adopting a terrified façade. "If it's money you want, then here," he stammered up at Cinderblock. With shaking hands, he tore his wallet from his jacket and threw it at the monster's feet. "Just don't hurt us," he sniveled.

Rough, rocky chuckling rattled in his chest as Cinderblock smiled. Then he scowled fiercely and split the air with a roar. Boulder fists crushed the bench they'd sat upon. Then Cinderblock lumbered forward, reaching for them with giants' grasps.

Soaring out of reach, Starfire tapped the watch at her wrist. Her human face melted into golden truth, and her eyes were swallowed in green glow. Tim's jacket fluttered to the ground, leaving her arms unhampered as she called starbolts into her palms. "I do not believe he is fooled," she said down to Tim.

Tim rolled away from another of Cinderblock's hammer blows. His hand dipped into his breast pocket, drawing out a strip of black and white. The two-toned strip adhered over his eyes, molding itself into his scowl. "Guess not," Robin said. "Too bad for him."

Starfire darted in front of Cinderblock and caught his swinging fist in her forearm. Her opposite hand flared with power, which she poured into the creature's midsection, coloring her black dress a brilliant green with a wash of spillover starbolt. Cinderblock staggered back, clutching his smoldering stomach. His glare assured Starfire that he was hurt but far from out. "Perhaps the others should be made aware of our situation," she said.

A cry of protest rang silently in Robin's chest as he dug through his pocket for his communicator. "Right. I—" Before he could even work its faceplate open, the communicator chirped twice: the short signal indicated that another Titan needed immediate backup. "New plan," said Robin, stuffing the device back into his pocket. "We beat the gravel out of fossil face, and then go help the others."

Starfire squinted at the blinding nimbus of crimson fire that Robin became. "I regret that this happened just as the night grew exciting," quipped Starfire.

Robin watched her dart through the air to avoid the broken tree Cinderblock tossed at her. The ground slipped out from beneath him as he rose to join her. "I think we can still scare up a little excitement," he called after her.

* * *

Raven thumbed her communicator closed and stuffed it back into her jeans' pocket. Her eyes lifted to the pile of Plasmius growing in the bookstore's far corner. Its yellow eyes glare back, floating amorphously amidst the glopping gunk. "We can forget about backup," she said. "Someone else is calling for _our_ help." 

Standing next to the puddle of her abandoned clothes, now clad in her teal jumpsuit, Tek eyed the growing pile of sludge that fell from cracks in the bookstore ceiling. Its potent stench burned the hair from her nostrils as she backed away from the pooling ooze. "That's okay," she said unconvincingly. "We just have to beat him ourselves. Without touching him. Or going near him. Or breathing deeply." Tek made a sour face. "You're sure they won't answer? Maybe you should try calling again."

The quivering mass of burgundy bile surged up, forming a massive claw that descended on Tek with frightening speed. Tek screamed and ducked, covering her head with her arms. Seconds ticked by in which she continued to live. She cracked an eye and looked up. Hovering over her head, a translucent wall of black kept the living ooze at bay. The putrid purple slime poured over the edges of the black shield, glorping onto the floor with hisses of smoke.

Tek looked to the side, where Raven clutched at the empty air in concentration. The sorceress's face twisted with effort. "Thanks," Tek said, coughing as the smoke curled into her breath.

"Suit...up..." Raven hissed. She shut her eyes at the dazzling burst of blue light that heralded Tek's signature armor. When she opened her eyes again, Tek had become a futuristic knight in organic metal armor, and the ooze surrounding her had risen into a dozen different claws that reached for Tek as one. "Tek!" Raven cried too late.

Tek's visor scowl snapped over to Raven in a rookie mistake. The tendril claws at her feet bowled her over and laid her on her back like a bipedal beetle. A tinny howl resonated from her grille as the tendrils spilled across her broad chest, drilling into each joint of her armor in search of a weak spot. Tek thrashed and screamed, sobbing in panic as the viscous muck gripped her tight.

Swathes of living shadow streaked through the air as Raven charged forward. "Azarath! Metrion! Zinthos!" she bellowed. Her soul-self swept over Tek's front, clearing away the toxic villain, a mystic squeegee that threw Plasmius clear. Raven skidded across the slimy residue to kneel by Tek, catching herself on the unmoving metal of her teammate. Beyond the girls, Plasmius began coalescing again.

The slime clinging to Tek's armor burned Raven's hands as she tried to rouse the comatose armor. "Tek? Tek, get up," she said. Unable to move her weighty teammate, Raven stood and kicked Tek's helmet. "Get up!" she shouted.

Unearthly shrieking drew Raven's gaze across the room. There, Plasmius had united and now rose up into a loosely humanoid shape. Yellow eyes resurfaced in the sickening purple pus, swiveling toward Raven with narrowed hate. Raven felt a miniscule modicum of relief that the _Nook for a Book_'s panicked patrons had already fled the store in terror.

A new sound filled Raven's ears, a bass rumble that accompanied Plasmius's tenor shriek. Raven followed the rumble back to its source. Her twilight eyes fell upon Tek's slimed grille as the armor began to twitch. Her stomach plummeted as she recognized the sound, recalling the first time she had seen that armor, and she jumped back.

Slime sprayed everywhere as Tek exploded up and crushed deep dents into the carpeted floor. Tek's armored forearms split apart and sprouted twin barrels, each of which cradled a tiny nova waiting to be unleashed. A tinny, mindless roar echoed from her helmet as Tek turned toward the oozing creature and lit her cannons. Fire sprayed from her arms in staccato bursts that swept the large room with white fire. The towering stacks around them erupted into flames as their books became timber for Tek's rage to ignite.

Plasmius ducked beneath Tek's wild shot. But the creature couldn't press its attack as a row of shelves toppled between it and the Titan pair, creating a barrier of fire it couldn't overcome. Plasmius screamed with frustration and turned back to the wall from whence it came, which had just started aflame.

Blessed with a few extra seconds in the confusion, Raven turned back to the psychotic Tek. She ducked beneath another wave of auto-fire and sprinted, drawing her cloak tight around her to protect her bare legs from the intense heat of the flames. The screaming, gorilla-sized girl mech spun before her, turning every which way and snarling white-hot death at imagined threats. Summoning her soul-self, Raven forged a hand of liquid thought and slapped Tek's metal face hard.

"Get a hold of yourself," Raven shouted above the roar of the flames.

Tek's unblinking scowl bore down on Raven. For a brief instant, Raven wondered if she had made a miscalculation, and if her soul-self could stop the fire hose of plasma that would surely be winging her way at once. But then Tek shook her head and looked around at her handiwork. Conflagration consumed the bookstore from top to bottom. Tek's massive shoulders fell as she looked down at Raven's glare. "I did this, didn't I?" she squeaked tinnily.

"And then some," grunted Raven.

She glanced back at the far wall, which had a large hole melted through it with purple residue at its edges. A cool glimpse of a night alley teased Raven from beyond the flames. Wordlessly, Raven wrapped herself in obsidian thought and plunged through the fire. Thundering footsteps followed her blind charge. When the blistering heat left her soul-self, Raven lowered her wrap and was greeted by the cool air of the alley, which she coughed into her smoky lungs fervently. Behind her, Tek struggled through the hole, covered in flaming flotsam that fell from the wall she pushed through.

Wracked with coughing, Raven hardly heard Tek lumber up behind her. The alley flared blue-white as Tek's armor retracted into the spatial anomaly in the girl's back. Raven could already sense the idiotic "Are you all right?" question perched on Tek's lips when both their communicators sounded off. As Raven could hardly breathe, Tek grabbed up her communicator first.

"Tell them we're okay, but that Plasmius is on the loose," coughed Raven. Her eyes swam in tears as she concentrated hard, clearing her lungs and rejuvenating their charcoaled tissue.

A rapid trio of beeps rang from Tek's canary-colored communicator, stopping her answer cold. She double-checked the list of codes in the device's memory before snapping it closed. "It's an automated distress beacon from the Tower," said Tek. "I think the code is Priority Alpha."

Raven froze. Priority Alpha was one of the more serious codes, and had only been used once before, upon Robin's disappearance at the hands of Slade. Much as she complained about her friends' inferior focus, she knew they wouldn't throw around such a code lightly. She picked herself up and drew her cloak about her, and then stalked down the alley. "Put a call in to the Fire Department. We don't have time to wait for them."

"Why not?" asked Tek, chasing after Raven.

A silent and rare prayer rang in Raven's mind. She knew they couldn't afford to keep an eye on the fire, even though she saw real risk in the blaze spreading to neighboring shops. "Because we might already be too late," she said.

* * *

Everything had changed. 

Beast Boy lay atop a platform of dirt no wider than a queen-sized bed and no thicker than corrugated cardboard, floating at an altitude where nosebleeds thrived and acrophobics wallowed in nightmare. The air remained mercifully still and just cool enough to keep the light sweat on his bare green skin at bay. His heart, which had raced hard and fast just minutes ago, now thrummed at a slow, even pace well suited to the extreme relaxation he felt. A luxurious breath lifted his glistening chest, lofting the pool of silken hair that nested there.

His sigh stirred the blonde off his chest. Similarly disrobed, she glistened with the same post-exhilaration as he did. She lifted her eyes to his, glowing in the faint light of the moon, and gave him a million dollar smile. "Something's on your mind," Terra said.

"You think so?" asked Beast Boy.

Terra kissed his stomach, making him giggle. "I can tell," she said. Her kisses trailed up his chest, reaching his lips with excruciating deliberation. After a slow, penetrating kiss, she pushed her eyes into his and grinned. "So spill," she commanded.

Laughing, Beast Boy grabbed her by the waist, pulling her into his lap. She shrieked with delight, and then collapsed against his chest, content to feel his words rumble through her. "There's too much," he said into her crown of gold. "I wouldn't know where to start. I wouldn't know what to say. Besides, 'Wow,' over and over again." With a snort, he added, "Raven's the wordy one. She'd probably know how to say it all, and with ten extra words just to sound fancy."

A cross look creased Terra's face. She pinched his thigh and nipped his neck, making him gasp. "You'd better not be thinking about Raven right now," she told him.

Her victim shrank out from beneath her, buzzing into a fly that darted behind her. He reverted with his arms wrapped around her, pinning her back to his chest. A kiss to her neck quelled her half-hearted protests. "Who do you think I'm thinking about?" he said into her ear.

Terra leaned back against him. They shared a content sigh and stared out at the city and the sea twinkling far below them. Terra clasped her hands over his on her stomach and reveled in the feeling of Beast Boy's breath on her cheek as their heads settled together. Closing her eyes, Terra gave thanks for that night, and wished to all the stars watching over them that the peaceful, wonderful moment would stretch into the rest of their lives.

Four shrill notes beeped from beneath them, coming from a pile of clothes mashed into their dirt bed.

Beast Boy's eyes flew open. He wondered if he'd misheard, until the same four notes called out to him again. He slid away from Terra and yanked up his pants with a spray of dirt. The four-note cry came a third time before he dug his communicator from its pocket and flipped it open. His eyes exploded.

"It's the doomsday whistle," he said. He tried hooking his communicator to his belt in an unconscious gesture, only remembering his state of undress when its clip scraped his bare skin. Grunting, he snatched his pants from the disc's gritty surface and jumped into them. Only once he'd clasped his belt around his waist and hooked his communicator there did he notice Terra's dour confusion. "It's for the worst kind of emergencies," he explained. "It's coming from the Tower. We have to hurry."

The confusion dribbled from Terra's face. Sorrow came to replace it as she stood slowly and watched him examine the torn remains of his uniform shirt. When she made no move for her own clothes, Beast Boy gave her an odd look. Her heart began pounding as she realized that the moment she had dreaded all these months had finally come. She opened her mouth, which dried into cracked sandpaper, and could only manage a croak. "Gar..."

Beast Boy gathered her shirt and shorts, draping them over his arm before offering them to her. "Not that I mind, but you might want these before we go. Birthday suits are great for distractions, but lousy for crime-fighting." She made no move for the uniform. His broad smile lessened. "C'mon, Tara. We have to hurry. Our friends need us."

Droves of words died in Terra's throat, choking her to tears. She looked away and waved off his concerned hand. Her blurry vision fell upon the distant T-shaped tower and locked itself there, refusing to look into Beast Boy's face as she said, "There's nothing you can do for them, Gar."

He tried to worm his way into her vision, but she stood at the edge of the disc. A nervous laugh broke his smile as he grasped her shoulder. "What does that mean?"

Terra bit her lip. She crushed her eyes shut, unable to stem their tide. Turning around, she faced him, completely naked. "No," she told him with shaking words, "You have to stay here with me. By the time you get there, it'll be over."

He laughed again, this time without any humor. "What are you talking about?" he asked. A gentle hand took her shoulder as he peered down into her tears. When he saw her eyes through their slick sorrow, an instinctive warning blared in his head. He grasped her arms and grew serious. "What are you talking about?" he asked again, less gentle.

Her tears doubled as she watched his loving expression transform into a mistrust she could not bear. "It's happening tonight. He promised to make it quick. Slade said—"

"Slade?" shouted Beast Boy. He staggered back, as though struck, and nearly toppled from their island in the sky. He clutched his head and doubled over, his mind reeling. "How could... What is he..." He straightened, his eyes wide and drilling into Terra. "You're the Apprentice," he murmured. "Oh my God. You're the traitor. You're the traitor?"

Anguish streaked her makeup as she flew to him. Her hands snaked through his, weaving together their fingers. "You don't understand," she sobbed. "Slade saved me. He saved me from myself. Now I can save you," she whispered, resting her forehead against his shocked expression. "We don't need the Titans. They aren't what you think. They're selfish. They only want to use you. If you just—"

Beast Boy pushed her back. Pure horror twisted his face while she fell back onto her earthen platform, too stunned to cry out. "What have you done?" he demanded. "What did you...?" His hands wrenched through his hair as he looked down at their bed with new eyes. "What was this? Was this a lie too?" Anger lit his gaze, which burned through Terra. "You've been lying? About everything?"

"No," she cried. Throwing herself across the platform, she clutched at his legs, refusing to let go. She climbed up them, throwing her arms around his waist and pressing her face into his bare stomach. Her tears left hot, wet smears of panic that made his skin crawl. "Please," she begged him, "Please, stay with me. All we need is each other, Gar. Just stay with me..."

The plea punched Beast Boy in his rolling stomach. He swayed, horrified by her confession, unable to say anything that could come close to mirroring the chaos in his mind. His heart ached longingly to fall to his knees and take her into his arms, to kiss her pleading face until they both returned to the joy they had shared such a short time ago. But then his heart dredged up five more faces that overshadowed Terra's with their need. In the end, there was no choice.

He paused for one last look. The sight of Terra, helpless and uncovered at his feet, would haunt him for the rest of his life. Then he jumped back, wrenching from her grasp and clearing the edge of the dirt platform. He vanished from view in an instant. Terra lunged forward and grasped the lip of her disc. Scanning the skies below, she spied a shadowy pterodactyl gliding out to sea. The anachronistic creature filled the sky with a mournful howl.

Terra pulled back numbly from the edge and collapsed onto her lofted element. Beast Boy's abandoned shirt fluttered next to her in an ill wind. She grabbed the garment and drew a long, shuddering breath. Then she sobbed into its folds, trembling in a fetal ball wrapped around the only part of him she had left.

* * *

Hydraulic fluid poured over Cyborg as he tore a dark commando in half above his head. Its armor crinkled like tin foil as he howled, glaring up into the hail of fluids and components raining from the robot. Then he tossed the pieces aside and glared challengingly at the remaining intruders. Dark, oily liquid sprayed from his lips as he shouted, "Who else wants some?" 

Dozens of broken robot bodies in varying degrees of completeness littered the floor. Ops stood in ruins after only minutes of the battle, and now smoldered in decay, obscuring the innumerable foes that remained from even Cyborg's advanced eyes. For every robot he smashed, three more seemed to arise in its place. Cyborg's armor bore deep scars from too many close calls, and his energy levels were starting to dwindle. At least twenty more commandos circled around him with slow, deliberate, soundless movements. Still more flashed past the broken doors in the corridor outside Ops.

Cyborg scowled through flashing messages of warning at the dark commandos. The soldiers' hit and run tactics would finish him off in short order unless he pulled a miracle out of thin air. None of his distress calls had been answered, leaving him on his own, and he wasn't about to count on any divine intervention to save him. "If I'm goin' out, I'm goin' out loud," he muttered. Sparks showered from his arm as his hand expanded into a sonic aperture. His eye narrowed.

Pencil-thin beams of liquid heat boiled the air around Cyborg's thundering charge. Robotic flotsam crunched underfoot and flew up in his wake. He roared and leapt, clearing a trio of commandos and their laser blasts, and crashed into the perimeter they'd trapped him in. Commando armor shrieked and yielded to his knuckles in a spray of hydraulic fluid. Lasers glanced off his molybdenum skin, scorching dark lines into his circuitry patterns.

The dark soldiers converged on him in a single surge. He grabbed the face of one commando and squeezed. The wide-eyed mask crumpled and smoked in his palm before he swung it around, dragging the commando's body in a circular arc that made its comrades' charge falter. The broken commando's neck snapped, sending its body flying from the fray. Cyborg pitched its head hard into another commando's face and then struck the blinded robot with a sonic blast that bowled it into three of its own kind. Cold, strong arms encircled Cyborg from behind and dragged deep furrows into his chest with their black talons. He snarled and reached over his shoulder, and plucked a commando from his back. Before he could toss it, two more commandos careened into his sides, digging chunks of alloy out of him. He howled and fell to one knee, bleeding sparks.

Commandos poured over Cyborg in his moment of weakness. His vision went black with their undulating armor. He tried to fight back, but his arms couldn't move. Something tore through his abdominal alloy and began rooting through his favorite digestive drivers. More claws plunged into him, drawing dangerously close to what little organics he had left beneath his armor.

Cyborg screamed, tasting oily blood, and readied his Sunday Punch. His transponder would burn itself out releasing one last potent distress call to draw his friends back to the Tower. They would mop up the rest of the commandos in what remained of the Tower after he set his power cell to critically overload. Amidst the agony of being torn apart, Cyborg figured the blast should take out at least the top three floors. It gave him a sick sense of pride.

He'd just gotten his final subroutines in order when the cracks between his undulating blanket of black bodies flared red and green. Colorful fire hammered Cyborg secondhand, tossing his attackers aside like rag dolls. Cyborg held his breath and gripped the floor beneath him as the enemy numbers dwindled to nothing. The last of them scowled into Cyborg's swimming eyes before novas of scarlet and emerald blew the commando apart. Scorched circuitry scraped Cyborg's face. Then he sat up, blinking his double vision back together.

"How bad is it?" Robin asked. He toed the remains of a commando mask with the scuffed toe of his dress shoe. Silky white tatters hung on his sculpted chest and arms, the remnants of his dress shirt. His mask narrowed as it surveyed the room.

Cyborg grunted and accepted a hand from Starfire, whose concern poured from her face and into his sparking wounds. "I'm fine, thanks," he shot. Glancing at Starfire, his annoyance waned. Her beautiful dress was in shreds, barely up to the task of keeping her curves contained. Twigs and leaves sprouted from her tangled jet of red hair. Cyborg brushed her concerned touch aside and asked, "What happened to you two?"

Starfire noticed his look and cast her eyes aside in embarrassment. She ran her hands uselessly across her brambly hair, and said, "We encountered Cinderblock in the park." Casting a look back at Robin, she said, "Ti...Robin believed that his presence was intended to prevent us from returning to the Tower. Upon your second distress call, we abandoned our chase."

With a snort, Robin kicked a dismembered head across Ops. It crunched satisfyingly into the far wall. "We had him until he hit us with that tree," said Robin. He plucked twigs from his own hair and tossed them aside, disgusted. Then he gave up and marched forward, demanding, "So what are we looking at?"

"Lots of 'em," said Cyborg. Wobbling a moment, he turned to face the main door alongside Starfire and Robin. Cyborg's heightened hearing and advanced scanners spread into the now-empty hall and beyond. He spared the shorter of the two a suspicious glare before continuing, "There're too many to count. By now, they gotta be all over the Tower."

"Then we're on cleanup," Robin told them. Red fury boiled in his mask above a sinister smile. "Hit them hard and fast. Don't give them a chance to organize. Keep running."

"Well, isn't that a grand plan," Raven said from the empty housing of their window-monitor. The three early birds turned and saw their sorceress floating just outside. Her scorched sweatshirt flapped in the night air. Tek hovered next to her, shivering, her teal jumpsuit black with chilling soul-self.

Both girls crossed into the Tower and dropped to the floor. Tek landed in a crouch and grunted. The blackness cradling her evaporated into wisps of nothing. Raven stumbled forward, catching herself against the remaining half of their couch. She looked stunned as Starfire floated to her side. Disoriented, Raven still pulled away from her alien friend's helping hand.

Tek looked around. "What happened here?" she asked in a mousy voice.

"Where are Beast Boy and Terra?" Raven asked over Tek's question. She rubbed her temples, unable to explain the intense pressure that had suddenly appeared between them.

Robin ignored both of their questions as he brought them together in a huddle. "Never mind that," he told them. "All of you get ready. We're going to clear these robots out one room at a time."

"And get killed in the process," Raven said through her teeth. Her fingertips continued in small circles on either side of her head, framing a pained expression.

Linking with the Tower's emergency systems, Cyborg took stock of what they had left. Between his own damage warnings and the list of operable Tower systems that was growing shorter by the minute, Cyborg had nothing good to say. "Security's shut down and destroyed," he said. "It's useless."

"Perhaps we could activate the lockdown protocol," Starfire suggested. "It would—"

Robin cut her off with a snarl. "That would just trap them in the Tower, and seal each room individually. We'd have to burn through every door and wall just to get at them." Swinging his glare to include the rest of the hesitant bunch, he growled, "We don't have time for a committee. We have to take them out in one charge."

Brilliance struck Cyborg upside the head. He snapped his fingers with a metallic ping. "Charge. The power core!"

Confusion came at him from all sides. "In the basement?" asked Starfire.

He nodded. "We run all the power through every line and device left in this place," he said, making unhelpful explanative gestures, "And I mean all the power. The Tower-wide overload turns this whole place into an electromagnetic hot zone that fries every robot here."

Creases lined Tek's brow. "What about you?" she asked. "Won't this electromagnetic...thingy hurt your robot parts too?"

Looking down, Cyborg ran his thick fingers across the gashes in his armor. The crinkled hole in his stomach still sputtered with intermittent sparks. "Probably. My tender bits have top-notch shielding, but I'm gonna be less than healthy after this works."

"If it works," Robin countered, folding his arms. "What if the power core just goes critical?"

Cyborg tossed an annoyed look on Robin. "That happens, they'll be cleaning our ashes out of lint traps everywhere in the city." Dropping his voice, he added, "But it beats a suicide charge all through the Tower."

The annoyed look was returned in kind. "I guess you'll just have to get it right the first time," said Robin.

* * *

Deadly red beams crisscrossed the corridor, tearing its thick, armored walls to ribbons. Plaster rained from the ceiling, covering each dark commando in a fine mist of white as they ruined the Tower as their secondary objectives instructed them to do. Their clawed hands tore delicate security sensors from housings throughout the corridor. One pair set to work on a series of deactivated stun cannons, which had been revealed in the last round of lasering. The commandos performed their demolition with detached professionalism and ruthless efficiency. Their creator's focus bled into their every action, breaking for nothing except their primary objective. 

And then their sophisticated sensors homed in on just that objective as it barreled down the hallway in five-part harmony. Sprites of scarlet and emerald cut through the air, leading a pair of metal leviathans through the devastation. A navy-cloaked ghost followed close on pale, shapely legs. Five scowls challenged the pack of commandos strung through the hall. The commandos turned from their destruction, too willing to meet and match this Tower's final charge.

Bolts of colorful fire sprayed down the hall, blowing commando chasses into scrap in contact. Robin threw his bolts alongside Starfire and spiraled through the corridor to catch lasers meant for Cyborg on his chest. Dark delight spread through his face as he watched his foes burst apart in splashes of red death. Something wonderful reawakened in his chest, spurring Robin forward to grab one commando and rend it apart with a few flip gestures. More than any time in his life, he felt charged. He felt alive! With a roar, he soared from their tight formation and plowed through a squad's worth of commandos by himself.

More commandos spilled out of the woodwork, crawling from jagged holes in the walls, from gaps in the floor and ceiling, and leapt at the remaining Titans from all sides. Tek and Cyborg turned to their flanks and swatted the new onslaught aside one robot at a time. This left Raven alone to guard the rear, which became flooded with foes in seconds.

Raven cast her headache aside and clasped her hands. Her eyes spilled arcane light as they narrowed upon the commandos. A deep breath rolled from her lungs in her incantation. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" Her hands flew forward, propelling her will through the air.

Nothing happened.

A commando boot clipped Raven's jaw with tooth-rattling force. She fell back, becoming twisted in the folds of her cloak. In the seconds it took to dig her gaze out of the blue fabric, her foes had gathered above her with weapons drawn to finish her. Raven faced her end with a scowl, but saw instead a stream of white plasma fill the air above her. The fire tore her imminent death to glowing metal shreds. When the fire ceased, Raven saw Tek's massive metal form waiting above her with outstretched hand. "Raven," Tek's tinny voice rang, "Are you okay? Why aren't you—"

"Something's happened to my powers," Raven barked. She stood on her own. Tek retracted her rebuffed hand to slam it through a commando, cleaving it in half. Standing close at Tek's side, Raven looked around at the thickening ring of commandos cutting them off from the rest of the Titans down the hall. "I can't use magic, either," said Raven, eying the commando wall in their way.

The anxiety in Tek's voice was unmistakable. "Okay," she said, raising her cannons. There was a good chance her shots could continue down the hall and hit something friendly, but the morbid alternative wasn't any better. "Stay close to me," she said. "I think I can...Raven?"

She looked down to find Raven gone. A flash of blue vanished from the edge of Tek's vision. Tek followed the fluttering edge of Raven's cloak into the commando mob. Raven crouched under a vicious swipe of claws and then leapt up, scissoring her legs across the front line of commandos. Their circled masks became targets for her heel, which snapped their heads around and split their ranks. Landing, Raven rolled through the fresh gap and came to her feet in another leap that carried her over the second wave of commandos entirely.

As Raven vanished behind the second wall of commandos, Tek could only stare, dumbfounded, until several jarring laser blasts reminded her of the situation. She lumbered forward and through the bots with breaking force to follow Raven's acrobatics. Laser ricochets danced off her smooth, polished armor.

Robin reached the hall's end a few seconds before Starfire. Lasers drilled into his back as he kicked the stairwell door off its hinges. The flying door slammed into a trio of commandos causing havoc on the stairs and knocked them through the rail. The three robots tumbled down into the black depths of the Tower, disappearing into the darkness an instant before a crunch of twisted metal echoed through the stairwell.

Waving the lagging elements of his team forward, Robin bellowed, "Let's go. Move!"

Starbolts poured past his nose and through the doorway, annihilating a commando in the process of sneaking up on him. Starfire tossed him a smug look before she followed her starbolts in, hands aglow. Cyborg came next, followed nimbly by Raven. Tek backed down the hall last, keeping their invaders at bay with her auto-cannons. She shouted that she would keep their backs clear, and so Robin darted through the door, diving down into the dark reaches of the stairwell. More commandos lurked on the stairs at every level. Untimely laser fire sliced the air behind Robin's feet, helpless to stop him. He was untouchable.

Peering over the railing, Raven watched both alien powerhouses light the way with their respective colors. The dozens of commandos waiting on each level of the stairwell didn't escape her notice. Cyborg waited behind her, looking expectantly between her and the broken gap in the railing. "I can't fly," she told him. "My powers—"

Shock stole her breath as Cyborg scooped her into his arms, flooding her preternatural senses with concern and fear. "We'll figure it out later," he said, and then stepped onto the open air.

Smoke and lasers streaked around them as Cyborg carried her, and was carried in turn by gravity's indifferent embrace. He cringed and mourned for his knees. Then he struck ground, crushing the broken door fragments at the bottom of the stairwell as he grunted and knelt to absorb the impact. Mechanical whining from his knees made him cringe again while he straightened.

He looked down at his armload, and he couldn't help but smile at the shaken look on her face and the iron grip she had locked around his neck. When her wide eyes pulled back into her head and noticed his smirk, she extracted herself from his arms with cold haste.

"If you tell anyone..." she said, glowering.

Cyborg mimed a zipper across his lips.

Tek jumped last, pounding the floor next to them. The Titans gathered together and burst through the bottom door. Charging down the corridor beyond, they encountered a frightening moment of tranquility; the commandos hadn't reached the lowest levels yet. The teens' footsteps thundered in silence.

Robin left the basement door intact as he entered, flying down the narrow steps without touching a single one. His friends piled in one at a time, with Tek at the end. She slammed the door shut and then stepped aside for Cyborg to melt its lock with his finger torch. "Forget about the door," Robin snapped. "They'll come through. Cyborg, get to work."

As Cyborg slid down the stairs' railing and Tek barricaded the door with herself, Robin knelt on the cement floor, uncovering a small keypad from beneath a metal plate. Five keystrokes later, new seams appeared in the flawless cement, giving rise to a large section of floor the size of a small room. The second ratcheted upward on the turn of rusty gears, revealing a tall column of silvery components with veins of throbbing cobalt light.

Worry and disquiet flanked Robin in the Titan ladies as they watched the power core ascend. Cyborg ripped its access panel off and tossed it aside. A sharp data jack snapped from his knuckles, which he slammed into a port in the core's panel. Then he crouched by the core, scowling in concentration. The core continued to pulse normally.

"Will you require large quantities of time?" Starfire asked, breaking the silent tension.

Still staring at the core wiring, Cyborg said, "I'm about to blow every single system in our futuristic techno-fortress. I have to disengage the bazillion safety protocols I installed to keep Beast Boy from doing this by accident. It's gonna be a minute."

A loud bang echoed from the door at Tek's back. She screamed and dug her enormous heels in. "They're coming!" she screamed, and planted her arms on the door frame.

The door burst into metal splinters amidst a spray of deadly red light. Tek wailed through the air and crushed the end of the stairs beneath her half-ton of bulk, serving as a doorstop for the tidal wave of commandos that crashed through the empty doorway to bear down on the Titans.

Laser fire splashed across the floor, blackening the room. Robin and Starfire met the wave with snarls and glowing hands. Bolts rained up from their last stand to split the commando attack into a rush of superheated debris. Those commandos who escaped explosion fell upon the powerhouses and pressed their attack in person. Black talons slashed the remains of their formalwear, drawing blood from Starfire and a perverse grin from Robin before alien might tore the robots apart bodily. The close pair blasted and brawled as hard as they could, but the commandos' numbers overwhelmed them in a matter of seconds, and poured over their alighted blows.

Looking back over his shoulder, Cyborg watched the commandos spill past the front line and dart straight for him. His hand was still stuck to the power core via his data link, which occupied his sonic cannon. Cyborg cursed and vowed to correct that design flaw pending their survival. In the meantime, he plowed through the power core's programming, his own handiwork, with all the grace of a digital bulldozer. Even as he tore the code apart, he knew he couldn't disable the core safeties in the seconds it would take those robotic soldiers at his back to wrench him away.

Raven vaulted into the commandos, curtaining Cyborg's view of the battle behind her flowing cloak. Her fists flashed, knocking the lead soldier back and stealing his weapon. A laser wave sliced from her borrowed weapon into the battalion. As the commandos exploded, Raven flipped back to Cyborg's side, brandishing her pistol to defend them both. "If you were looking for a moment to live up to all your techno-bragging," she grunted, "I think this is it."

The veins of the power core flared blindingly. "Everybody get ready!" shouted Cyborg. Drawing his data jack out of the port, he added in a mutter, "And pray to anybody who'll listen."

Blue light flooded the basement, stopping everyone in their tracks. The walls began to hum and smoke along specific lines. Buzzing rattled in the ceiling fluorescents as the lights flared, then exploded, the first victims of Cyborg's triumph. Next came the large, tubular water purification system, which belched brown sludge and died. The heater coils and their ducts wheezed black heat into the air. Unable to see, the Titans ducked their heads as the air crackled and arced across their fillings.

The high-tech of Robin's mask compensated for the basement's brightness. He blinked the stars from his eyes to watch their legion foes writhe in the throes of electromagnetic death. Sparks fountained from their soulless white eyes as they trembled, burned, twitched, and collapsed. Within a few endless seconds, the entire invasion force in their basement had hit the ground. They lay in heaps by the time the power core's cobalt glow faded. Then the room was cast into perfect darkness.

For a moment, nothing happened. The Titans hardly dared breathe, and could barely breathe at all for the pervasive smoke clogging the basement. Then, an all but inaudible click heralded Cyborg's shoulder lamp. Its pale, ghostly light filtered through smoke, painting a small sphere of visibility on the sheer black of the basement. At the sphere's center, Cyborg sat up from the floor with a groan. Horrified warning messages swamped his vision as he called, "Holler out if you're not dead."

"I couldn't be so lucky," Raven groaned at his side. Her features transcended ghostliness in his lamplight.

Red and green pierced the black outside Cyborg's light. The colors coalesced into two pairs of luminous eyes that brightened to illuminate disgruntled scowls. "I believe we are undamaged," said Starfire.

Metallic clattering drew all eyes further into the black. Starfire and Robin's hands flared with intent to annihilate any surviving commandos. Their energies illuminated a shifting pile of robots. Tense seconds ended in a collective sigh as Tek's armored head and shoulders emerged from the pile at the foot of the stairs. "'m okay," she groaned. A second later, the blue trim of her armor began to glow, creating a second alighted space in the dark. Tek looked down at her all-body flashlight with a shrug. "Aaaannnnd I'm a firefly, apparently."

Robin's red glare swept the darkened floor and its robot carpet. The sight of so many fallen foes left him with mixed feelings: his mind felt grateful that their desperate plan had worked, even as it took stock of the budget-busting blow their home had been dealt; his chest swelled with rageful pride at his team's handiwork, but yowled for more and greater battle to come.

His silent, primal wish was answered in a series of rapid-fire bangs. Every face in the commando graveyard burst from its cranial housing, causing the Titans sans Robin to jump and cry out. Each commando sported a small, square video screen where its face had been, which, when flickering to life, surrounded the Titans with glowing red-orange eyes that stared into them. Though the disabled robots remained motionless, their new electric panoptic stare unsettled Robin's team to the core, and set Robin back on his edge.

"_Robin_."

The graveyard of broken soldiers spoke as one, surrounding the Titans with one voice. Robin's knuckles cracked into a trembling fist at his hip as his glowing glower swept the room of cyclopean screens. "Slade," he said.

With a roll of her eyes, Raven muttered, "And here we go."

"_I see my drones were unable to best you,_" Slade said in surround-sound. "_I suppose congratulations are in order. Turning your entire tower into an electromagnetic field generator was quite the clever improvisation. Though I had expected your cyborg to have an equivalent device on hand rather than sacrificing your infrastructure. Such a pity_."

"It's over, Slade," Robin growled. "The Tower is still ours. You lost."

"_It certainly seems that way. Titans Tower is indeed yours, in all its resplendent char. But there are a few silver linings, I suppose._"

In the dim illumination, the teens saw the winding metal stairway fell on itself, folding flat into a space in the floor and crushing those commandos still caught on its stairs. Tek leapt clear of the stairwell as it landed with a deafening clap of metal on concrete. Wind blasted the basement's smoke into a tempest from the stairway's controlled collapse, nearly obscuring the two feet of solid metal that swallowed the lone door set high into the wall above them. By the time the air settled in the room and their ears had stopped ringing, the Titans found themselves trapped, prisoners of their own basement.

"_For instance,_" Slade's voice continued, "_Your lockdown systems appear to have survived your little stunt. I see from your blueprints that they're the most heavily shielded of your systems._"

The bloody circles in the commandos' cranial screens vanished. Two gleaming numbers took their place on each screen.

"_And of course, you have all those drones spread throughout every part of your tower. As an additional prize, I've included a substantial explosive device with each one._"

The numbers began blinking back, counting down to the inevitable.

"_Enjoy your victory, Robin. You certainly deserve it._"

Tek spun around as the bodies-turned-bombs whiled away their last seconds with a digital countdown wherever she looked. "Can we—"

"Lockdown barriers're too thick, and there's too many to disarm," said Cyborg. His gaze and lamp whirled upon Raven. "You need to—"

Raven pulled at reality's fabric with all her mental might. Her migraine tripled, and space-time stayed stubbornly intact. "No powers," she said, clutching her head. "Something's been shutting me down since we got here."

Grimacing, Cyborg mechamorphed his arm into a sparking cannon, and blatantly ignored the twenty seconds flashing all around them in their foes' faces. "Star, Tek, Robin, with me on the door. We might be able to get through some of the barriers in time to—"

Robin drowned out their frightened mewling and pointless ideas, and backed over the explosive drones to the far wall of the basement. He snapped his communicator open and pressed a red button, unique to his device, and tapped a brief code on its keypad. Then, in a barking tone, he gave his final order as commander of Titans Tower.

* * *

Lofted on wings of leathery speed, Beast Boy the pterodactyl dove onto the island's shore and collapsed into the surf. He rose in the shape of a boy, gulping air into his lungs to quell the cold fire his sprint had kindled in them. Wet sand clung to his bare chest and unshod feet as he staggered forward, staring intently at the alphabetical architecture built high atop the plateau of the island. The Tower was dark from top to bottom. Heavy smoke and ozone reeked across the island. Beast Boy's sharp eyes narrowed on the smoke curling through the jagged, empty windows of Ops, and his heart leapt into his throat. 

Compacting himself into a sparrow, Beast Boy soared once more. His miniscule wings pounded, pushing the sky beneath him as he streaked for the high seat of Ops. Visions of his friends standing triumphant over a shapeless menace massaged his panic to no avail. Surely, the foolish hope of his mind insisted, his friends would have no qualms in winning without him. Beast Boy was superfluous, a vestigial tail to be dragged behind the team, and they all knew it. He longed to hear their mocking voices, to endure their scoffs at his absence, if only it meant that they were all right.

He drew level with Ops' broken windows and caught a brief glimpse of the chaos the command center had become. Then the dark bodies piled in Ops erupted into pure, fiery hell. The deafening shockwave threw Beast Bird back. His tiny body tumbled through a roaring gale, catching the death of his home only in glimpses.

Fire leapt from every window in a spray of superheated glass. Rock powdered into geysers of sand as the underground sections burst up and collapsed. Metal shrieked, bending under incomparable force and unimaginable heat. More fire fountained from gaping wounds in the Tower's skin. Debris rained in red-hot shards, spreading fire to the dry fall foliage planted at the Tower's base. The foundation cracked, and the entire Tower began to tilt, catching itself with another piercing sob of stressed metal. There it remained, bent and broken, as it burned.

Beast Boy struck the ground in human form and bounced back. Flotsam peppered his face as he lay on his back, stunned, staring up at the flaming ruins of their home. The sharp aches of his fall lay forgotten in his bones as he stood, feeling instead a rolling nausea.

A shaking hand drew the communicator from his belt. As it lifted the device toward his face, his fingers failed him, trembling too badly to hold anything as he stared into the merciless flames. The device fell to the ground and split open to its default function. A cheerfully arranged screen blinked with a single signal, telling him that his was the only communicator remaining.

His mouth opened in a scream that never came as he fell upon the ground, staring, unable to tear his eyes from the towering inferno. Soft dirt worked through his fingers as he dug into the earth, raining hot sorrow from his cheeks.

Everything had changed.


	31. The Calm

_All-Purpose Disclaimer_

**Teen Titans** is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Cartoon Network Inc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit and purely for entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, not to be reproduced without prior consent. Additional information used in creating **Teen Titans: Avatar** courtesy of Titans Tower Online.

* * *

Terra brushed through the thicket of hanging chains, parting them with numb hands and numbed heart toward a single shaft of light at the chamber's center. The black and gold uniform she wore clutched her, suffocating her with the memory of a green face that haunted her every step. Try as she might, she could not escape his eyes. Her heart refused to let them go, even while her mind screamed for release from their unforgiving gaze. 

At last she broke the chains' edge and strode into the light. Her face became a frigid mask as she buried her conflict deep in her chest. Her gait became confident, her posture, triumphant. When Slade turned on his throne of technology and pomp, Terra made certain that all he saw was an apprentice worthy of his teachings.

"You have returned," Slade said, rising from his command chair at her approach. When she had stopped and stood attentively before him, Slade nodded, and said, "It is over."

Excitement and despair swirled beneath Terra's stone features. "Then you killed the Titans," she said.

He took her by the shoulder and led her around his throne, back into the chains and away from the light. They walked deeper into his compound, deeper than Terra could ever recall going. "They and their base are no more," he said. A touch of enthusiasm leaked through his words. It was the most emotion Terra had ever seen him let slip in her presence. She had to thicken the ice covering her features as he said, "And I assume you would not have returned unless you finished off their shapeshifter."

Terra managed a brief nod as they pushed through more chains. "I guess congratulations are in order," she said in a measured tone.

They reached the far side of the chamber. The blank, gentle curve of the wall broke only for a single structure, a large cabinet made of polished metal that bore Slade's angular 'S' between the split of its doors. Slade grasped the two halves of his insignia and opened the cabinet. Its doors spread wide, forcing Terra back a step.

"Congratulations to us both, my dear," said Slade. "After all, it was your instrumental help that brought about this moment."

He stepped aside. Terra stared into the interior of the cabinet, unable to speak. There, a glistening suit hung against the black lining, spread in the shape of her body. The suit's design mirrored that of Slade's uniform, save that it possessed rusted earth tone where Slade's uniform was pure red. A metallic badge of Slade's insignia dotted the suit's breast. A two-toned mask of black and brown hung over the suit's neck, glaring down at Terra with white, soulless eyes.

While Terra remained rooted in speechlessness, Slade plucked the garment and helmet from its casing, folding the metallic cloth neatly over his arm. "Consider this a gift," he said, pressing the suit into her grasp. "Your reward for your extraordinary efforts in infiltrating the Titans."

The silken fabric hung weightily in Terra's arms. Her eyes fell upon the helmet in the crook of her elbow. The helmet stared back. "I'm wearing this?" she asked, sounding surprised.

Slade's eye quirked at her methodical examination of the gift. "You should be glad to wear this," he stated. "Your new uniform possesses a meta-neural amplification network woven into a titanium composite cloth. In addition to stopping small caliber arms, it amplifies your preternatural abilities. You will possess finer control and greater power than you have ever dreamed possible while wearing your new uniform."

She could hardly hear him for the memory of a pubescent, accusatory cry that still rattled in her ears. "Am I really gonna need the power boost?" she asked, narrowing Slade's eye with her ungrateful tone. "I mean, the hard part's over. We won."

"On the contrary."

Slade snapped his fingers. Flood lights hung from the lofted ceiling snapped on with an echoing clap, revealing at last the entirety of Slade's domain. Terra blinked, taking in the stadium-sized building. Then she jumped at the commando lurking in the dissipated shadows behind her. An army of the creeping black drones crouched throughout the lair, waiting amidst the hanging chains with obedient gazes fixed on their master.

Terra's eyes trailed up to a second level set above the first that encircled the perimeter of the building behind a railing. Larger, heavier mecha waited on that upper deck, wearing monoptic glares set in the middle of their massive, gunmetal torsos. Rising further, her gaze fell upon the field of cogs forged into the ceiling, ready to draw the hanging chains taut. After so many months undercover, Terra had not known how far Slade's machinations had come. It startled her to realize how disconnected she had become from what had originally been "their" operation. Now that her part had been played out, would Slade still have need for her?

Ever insightful, Slade clapped a hand on Terra's shoulder and banished her uncertain expression with a grand gesture to the robot legion at his command. "Our true work begins at dawn, my Apprentice. And I have a special assignment for you that may require a great deal of power. Tonight, we forge a new world from the ruins of the old."

Struck with such enormity, Terra could only recall the world she had lost earlier that night. She swallowed her sigh and called up that world's green face in her mind. Nothing she did could make his emerald smile reappear.

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_By Cyberwraith9_

* * *

_The Calm_

Scorched memories crunched under Beast Boy's boot as he stepped into the former command center of their home. After hours of watching the Tower burn into a smoldering husk, his addled mind could think to do nothing else but see it for himself. His steps scrambled for footing on the tilted floor beyond the empty window. When he'd adjusted to the Tower's tilt, he looked to his surroundings. Smoke clung to his chest, blacking his green skin. His tears returned.

Nothing remained. The towering computer banks at either side of the room were charred skeletons of technology. Their couch had become a handful of misshapen springs amidst pervasive ashes. Compared with the survival of their other furnishings, that collection of springs was a miracle; the kitchen counter, the table, the lights, the equipment...it all existed underfoot, mixed with shards of blackened armor that Beast Boy didn't recognize.

He walked uphill to the broken door and pulled its seam apart with a rattle of gritty gears. The hallways were no different, filled with that same slurry of broken armor and wall-to-wall char. He walked in a daze, overcome by the smell and sight of soot. Silence howled at him from each slagged door he passed.

The stairwell was a mess. Half of the steps below him were piled at the bottom in mangled pieces. The largest section left intact had broken away from the wall, and now leaned across the stairwell. He stared into the smoky ruins and coughed. It took him a full minute to picture a bird in his mind. Then he morphed and glided down two levels, slipping through the slacken doors of the habitat level.

The loose pieces rattling in his chest led him down this new hall in a straight line. He skipped his own room and went straight to hers. The split door was parted in a 'V,' forcing him to step high and sideways to squeeze through.

Her scent hammered into him. It was hard to discern at first amidst the permeating smoke. But after a second, his nose locked onto the earthy fragrance he had reveled in mere hours ago. It became all he could smell. The fragrance staggered him to his hands and knees, which scraped against the gritty floor through the dusted remains of her furniture. None of that strange metal debris had made it into the room, which seemed to correspond with a greater degree of survival in the room. Larger pieces of Terra's things lay strewn in the ash.

Beast Boy's nose swam upstream through her scent to a scorched corner of nightstand. He pushed the piece aside and brushed through the ash. A glimpse of burnished metal teased him from beneath the ash, inciting frenzy in his hands. His grasp rose out of the ashes with a frozen memory framed in slagged silver. The photograph's glass had cracked and browned under the intense heat of the fire, and the picture's edges had crinkled away. The still images of himself and Terra remained intact, but only just, and without the sunset beach they had sat upon at the time the photo had been taken. Everything else had burned away.

Beast Boy lost himself in the happy couple embracing in the photo. He sat down on the floor, and then jumped and yelped as he felt something small jabbing his backside. Searching the carpet of soot, he produced a small, flat stone of volcanic origins. The stone was unnaturally dark, and smooth, marred only with an etching on its side that Beast Boy could not identify. He sniffed the stone and gagged at the smell of baked blood infused in its surface.

He held up the stone and picture. His eyes misted again.

In the haunting silence, a new noise arose. Beast Boy sniffed and tilted his angular ears at the ultrasonic whistle echoing through the Tower ruins. The whistle, inaudible to humans, oscillated along a familiar nine-note pattern that stopped Beast Boy's broken heart cold. Once the pattern had reached its ninth note, it paused for an agonizingly long second, and then began to cycle again.

Gorilla strength bashed Terra's doors aside. Shrinking into his human skin, Beast Boy raced down the hall, still clutching his discoveries from the room. He sprinted after the ultra-pitched tune, retracing his steps back to the stairwell. Heedless of the smoke and soot, he slid down the ruined, half-melted stairs and dropped to the bottom level, landing in a crouch. His green chest heaved with gritty air as he barreled down the last corridor to the basement.

Its door was already gone, and had been blasted considerably wider by some great explosion from inside. Beast Boy jumped in, realizing as he hit open air that the stairs were gone. He glided to the ground as a green blue jay, becoming human again to catch the picture and stone that fell after him. The cyclical tune vibrated in his ears. A moment's consideration determined that the sound originated from the far wall.

Beast Boy stepped atop a thick crust of the strange armor shards as he walked around the broken cylinder of their power core, and stood before a charred expanse of pitted concrete. The ultrasonic tone continued, unbearably loud, as he ran his blackened hand over the concrete. "What is this?" he muttered.

The section of wall he touched rumbled back into the wall. Beast Boy yelped and jumped as ten square feet of concrete slid aside, revealing armored doors set five feet back in the blasted wall. The doors bore the Titan 'T' between their split. That 'T' slid apart with a pneumatic whistle, unveiling a cramped chamber the nightmare of any claustrophobe. With nothing to lose, Beast Boy stepped through the short tunnel of concrete and armor and entered the chamber.

Upon his entry, the doors slid shut, sealing with an airtight hiss. Beast Boy turned at the door seal, and then turned again as a console slid from the wall and bumped into his back. The console's glossy black face blinked in the shape of a hand. "Please present palm for identification," a mechanical voice insisted. Beast Boy obeyed reluctantly, and felt a hair-raising tingle in his hand as the console beamed his palm with light. The console then slid back into the wall, and the synthesized voice said, "_Please provide access code._"

Stunned, Beast Boy searched for the source of the voice to no avail. "Uh...Garfield Logan. Access code: Green Genes."

The disembodied voice must have been satisfied, for Beast Boy felt the entire chamber jerk and descend. The three walls before him remained static, but the doors he'd entered through rose and vanished over the lip of the ceiling, and were replaced by a steady flow of red bedrock that swam up in the dim light of the chamber. "_Identity confirmed. Welcome, Beast Boy, to the Omega Protocol. Please keep all extremities inside the lift at all times. Please refrain from shapeshifting or leaving the lift until it has come to a complete stop. Thank you._"

Beast Boy shivered against a sudden chill and hugged his shirtless chest. Just as he wondered how the computer expected him to exit the lift into solid stone, the bedrock curtain lifted, revealing a sight that stole the eyes right from Beast Boy's head.

A sprawling, cylindrical chamber loomed beneath his lift, which had gone from basement level to sub-basement dizzying heights. The rough walls of the tubular chasm vanished far below, where the portable fluorescents mounted on web-like cables across the chasm's width couldn't reach. A series of horizontal grates jutted from the walls and hung in the chamber's center, forming multiple levels connected by narrow walkways. Mounted on these levels were equipment and portable shelters too numerous for Beast Boy to take in all at once. He stared down into the dizzying complex and its circular levels, too confused for words.

As his ride descended into the cavern depths, Beast Boy spotted a speck of blue and silver waiting at the bottom level's inner edge. That speck grew throughout Beast Boy's descent into a familiar face. His ride passed through the inner ring of the circular levels, stopping at the lowest level. Vertigo threatened him outside the confines of the lift cage with an endless drop into the black void below. Dizzy, Beast Boy tumbled out of the cage and into the arms of his best friend.

Cyborg caught Beast Boy and lifted him from the deck in a desperate hug. His cold metal bit through the numbing shock left in Beast Boy. The pair squeezed each other for as long as their masculinity would allow, and then Cyborg pulled back. Now separated, Beast Boy gasped at the crinkled gashes in Cyborg's armor, which had hasty patches of discolored metal to seal their breaches. Cyborg gave his smaller friend a dazzling smile. "You had me worried, Salad Head," Cyborg said in a too-jovial tone. With softer voice, he said, "I'm glad you're okay."

"I can't believe you're alive," said Beast Boy, once he'd found his voice. "When I got back, the Tower... It's..."

The joy in Cyborg's face plummeted. "I know," he said. "It was Slade."

Terra's voice rang in Beast Boy's head. He couldn't bring himself to look again at the photo clutched in his hand. "I know," Beast Boy echoed back. After a second of dread, he asked, "Is it just us? Did anyone else—"

"Gar!" Pounding footsteps in the grate floor parted their reunion. They looked up as Tek sprinted at them, rattling their footing with her hundred and five pounds of nervous joy. She tackled Beast Boy into a hug, winding her arms around his bare back and pressing her chin into his shoulder. "You're okay! Are you okay? Are you hurt? Where's Terra? And where's your shirt?"

Unable to speak, Beast Boy hugged Tek in silence and watched over her shoulder as Raven stalked toward them. The sorceress stopped a healthy distance from them with greater than her usual expression of disdain. When Beast Boy broke from Tek's embrace and approached Raven, her scowl deepened into a pained expression, as though his presence caused her more discomfort than it normally did.

"Raven," he said, "You're ali—"

Raven reflexively caught his wrist as he reached for her. It was nothing new to either of them for Raven to stop Beast Boy's platonic affections cold. But upon touching him, Raven gasped, and her knees buckled. Her eyes shot to his as they connected. Beast Boy felt cold all over as he watched her twilight gaze widen. Those twilight eyes shimmered, spilling over with tears that should have been his.

Drawing back, Raven released his wrist and shook the unwanted feelings away. With shaking hand, she plucked the stone from his grasp quickly, eager to keep away from his sooty touch. She wiped her eyes clear on the sly as she examined the stone, turning its dark face over in her palm. Finally, she tossed the stone to Cyborg, and said, "At least now we know what was blocking my powers. That's a Null Focus. It acts like a magical dampening field. Not an easy artifact to get hold of."

"I...I found it in Tara's room," Beast Boy said, clutching his cold wrist.

Cyborg grimaced and clenched his fist. The rock sparkled as it poured from between his fingers in a fine black powder. As he brushed his hands clean, Raven stretched her arms. Black ether flickered into being beneath her gesture, forming angular wings. The wings dissipated as quickly as they had manifested, and Raven lowered her arms into her cloak.

Beast Boy stammered for an explanation as Raven pulled away. The words became lost in the depths of her icy glare, which held a trace of tears only his sharp eyes could detect. Something in her scent changed, but Raven retreated in body and spirit before he could determine what this new musk was. Instead, he spun slowly, trying again to take the underground complex in. Something out the place struck him as familiar, though he had never been there before. "What is this place?" he asked.

His hollow question rang bitterly in Cyborg's face. Tek's nervous joy became nervous worry. Raven merely waited at a distance with puckered face. "Ask Robin," Cyborg said sullenly. He nodded up at the level above them, guiding Beast Boy's gaze through the grate. Two figures stood on the next level above them. Wordlessly, Cyborg and Tek led him to a narrow stairway. Raven trailed far behind, refusing to meet the glances Beast Boy tossed back.

As his bare feet slapped up the porous metal steps, Beast Boy had to marvel at the simplistic grandeur of the underground complex. Everything within the artificial cavern—both the inner and outer rings of grating, the narrow walkways and stairwells connecting them, and the thick cables supporting the structures—was constructed from modular components. The facility could have gone up in a very short time (provided you could find a crew of daredevil spelunking laborers to drive the cable anchors into the wall), but its gunmetal alloys would last for years without serious maintenance.

The group stepped onto the next level. This inner ring held a host of curiosities for Beast Boy to puzzle. In the center, a large console crouched inside a trio of control panels, spitting holographic projections of televised news feeds into the air. Robin and Starfire stood at the console and watched the talking heads. The pair wore shredded incarnations of their evening formalwear. Beyond them at the other edge of the inner ring, a row of individual chambers, each the size of a small shed, studded a full quarter of the circular deck. The lift track ran between the chambers, empty in the absence of the car that had carried Beast Boy down.

Their tremulous footfalls turned the console-watchers from their multiple feeds. "Beast Boy," Robin said, giving the shapeshifter a nod before he turned back to the news. "You got here sooner than I expected."

Starfire plowed into Beast Boy and crushed him in a hug that tore him from the ground again. "Gar!" she squealed in his ear. "You are unharmed!" Then she pulled him away and ran her gaze across his sooty abdominals. "What has happened to your shirt?"

"Now that everyone's here, we can begin," Robin said. He pressed a control on the panel at his elbow, banishing the holographic news feeds and plunging their gathering into uncomfortable silence. Robin waited until the others had gathered in close. Then he looked each of them in the eye before saying, "I think condolences are in order. We're all dead."

Stunned silence met his cold stare. Finally, Tek raised a hesitant hand and squeaked, "Um...what?"

Cyborg's red implant glowered at the statement. His arms folded with a soft _clank_, and he uttered, "I've been dead. This isn't it."

"The elevator called this place the 'Mega' something, I think," said Tek. She scratched her head, embracing confusion. "Elevators don't normally talk to me. What's the rule on trusting elevators?"

"Months ago," Robin interrupted, silencing Tek with a scowl, "We became aware that Slade had infiltrated the Titans with an agent posing as one of our own. The problem was, we weren't sure which one of us it was. Now we know. And better yet, now Slade thinks he's beaten us."

Starfire appeared the most devastated that tonight's tragedy had come about because of one of their own. She had wished from the start that the theory had been her friends' mistake, or even better, a ploy by Slade to drive them apart that would ultimately backfire and unify them against their nemesis. But the absence in their ranks could not be denied. "Then the betrayer was..." She trailed off, unable to speak the name aloud.

"Apparently so," Robin said, nodding.

Cyborg could contain himself no longer. "Then why didn't you tell us?" he demanded. Thrusting his arms out, he asked, "And why did you hide this from us? How did you hide this from us?" Like Starfire, he trailed off, trying to put the pieces of the night back together. One of the pieces fell neatly into place, taken from his extensive investigation. "The missing construction drone," he uttered, scowling.

Robin was unaffected by the confusion and anger surrounding him. "We knew there was a spy. We didn't know who it was. And as you're so fond of reminding us," he told Cyborg pointedly, "I was the most likely suspect. Instead of wasting my time proving my innocence, I decided to investigate Slade's ultimate goal, and to prepare for the worst. That's what we have here," he said, gesturing to the cavern around them. "The Omega Protocol."

"This is the hole that Slade tried to drop the Tower into," said Raven, glancing about. "The one we found when _she_ came back."

Robin nodded. Then he stepped back from their circle and pressed a series of buttons on the central console. New holograms lit the air, reflecting ominously in Robin's mask. The shape of Slade's commando rotated above the teens, standing ramrod straight on nothing. That shape's surface dissolved, revealing a gleaming metal skeleton beneath its charcoal skin. One by one, Robin's audience save for Tek recognized the metal skeleton: it was identical to those that attacked their friends at Sanctuary half a year ago. "Slade has been mass-producing these drones in staggering numbers. I've surmised as much by tracing shipments of alloys and electronics to accounts in his various aliases. What we saw upstairs was just an appetizer."

The glower on Cyborg's face remained. "So he's built himself an army? What's he gonna do with it?"

Another few keystrokes banished the metal skeleton hologram, replacing it with another projection: a three-dimensional model comprised of interconnected red tubes spread flat from a single source. "Why don't you ask our city control network?"

Cyborg squinted and stepped toward the rotating image. Up closer, he could read the text streaming around the red tubes. "That's stupid," he said. "Our central computer is upstairs in a puddle somewhere. The network couldn't be..." As he trailed off, he began to make sense of the sensor information flowing around the red model. Sharp rage filled his voice. "Son of a bitch," he swore softly. Then, louder, "That son of a bitch! With our own tunnels!"

Starfire's stomach, already a ball of tense discomfort, lurched at the sight of Cyborg's breakdown. "Why do you express the curses at Slade?" she asked. "That is, at this moment."

"He's moving something big through the Titan Tunnel Transport System. Tripping sensors off everywhere. Using Titan codes." Clenching his eye closed, Cyborg pounded his fist on the console, blurring the hologram momentarily. "I built these tunnels to help people, and now he's moving troops through them."

Raven made the final intuitive leap aloud. "He's taking over the city. Today." Folding her arms, Raven said, "So what do we do about it? If we let domestic military forces handle the drones—"

"They'll get cut to pieces," said Cyborg. "And a lot of innocent people will get caught in the crossfire."

"We must do something," Starfire insisted.

Robin recaptured the meeting with a gesture. "We will," he said. "I didn't have time to complete this facility. Ideally, we could deal with any global emergency from here, but we just don't have the equipment."

"Then what do we have?" snapped Cyborg.

The console produced six new holograms at Robin's keyboarded behest. "These," he said.

All six holograms lined up in a circle, forming a ring of miniaturized Titans, each of whom rotated to the fore when Robin pressed a button. "I've prepared a worst-case scenario package for each of us. This equipment, stored in the chambers behind us," he explained, pointing to the row of structures Beast Boy noticed earlier, "Is personalized and intended to maximize your potential."

"So now we're action figures to accessorize," Raven grumbled.

Robin ignored her and toggled the holograms. A foot-high Starfire floated to the front. Her uniform faded, and was replaced by a sleek and smooth silver bodysuit that hugged her holographic curves possessively. Lilac armor plates melted over the bodysuit to protect key vitals of her alien anatomy. A helmet with an M-shaped faceplate slid over the hologram's head. "I've reconstructed Tamaranian royal armor as best I could working off of your descriptions, Starfire," said Robin. "The undercoat will stop small arms and kinetics, and the plates will take cannon fire."

The uncanny piece of her heritage, recreated in Earth-style, startled Starfire. That Robin could make something like this based off of her tales of home astonished her. "It is remarkably close," she breathed.

The holograms toggled again. Now a replica of Cyborg rotated above them. His implants began shifting, growing larger and more menacing. Additional weapon arrays appeared atop his shoulders. Finally, a faceplate lowered over his features, masking his scowl entirely. "Cyborg, I've recreated the original tactical implants from your blueprints. You should be familiar with all the systems present," said Robin.

Cyborg scowled and said nothing. He was familiar with the staggering amount of firepower simulated before them, for he had removed each system from his own body. The idea of becoming a living weapon had disgusted him. Now, it did so again.

A miniature Raven replaced Cyborg's hulking doppelganger. The hologram donned a set of gothic leather armor. Silver inlays twisted through the armor's breastplate and bracers in arcane patterns. A heavy cloak of black leather settled over her shoulders, masking her holographic scowl in the shadows of a hood. "Light armor for Raven," Robin said, "Crafted with every protection spell I could afford. I've also—"

"Skip it," said Raven. Loathe though she was to admit, the armor impressed her. She recognized at least half of the protective symbols wrought from silver in its inlays. But she drew the line at Boy Wonder accessorizing. "I'm not looking for any utility belts," she told him.

A wan smile crossed Robin's face as he pressed another button. A quartet of musty tomes encircled the hologram Raven while her real counterpart looked on. "I figured as much," he said. "This is why I contacted Doctor Fate in the Justice League and asked him for the best combat magic he could bear to part with."

It took everything Raven had not to gape at the four titles flanking her armored miniature. Each volume she recognized as being extremely rare and extremely powerful. "That will do," she said in a painfully measured tone, and tugged her sweatshirt hood up to hide her face.

Tek raised her hand, spying a miniature of her armor behind the battle-Raven hologram. "Oh," she exclaimed, "I'm next!"

Swapping out holograms, Robin explained, "Cyborg designed and built an extension array to enhance your firepower. Each module is individually ejectable once its ammunition is exhausted."

A large, bulky pack settled on the Tek-model's shoulders, resting enormous gattling cannons at either side of her helmet. Two more cannons slid over each forearm. A rocket rack blossomed from the pack's sides, bristling with red-tipped death. Tek eyed her tiny self with an uncertain face. "More guns?" she asked, stricken. "I barely know how to use the ones I have now..."

Beast Boy's hologram came next. Black and purple Kevlar supplanted his uniform. Its coloration remained similar to his current uniform, but not for long; white chest plates, shin guards, and oversized shoulder guards appeared atop the bodysuit. Each plate bore a stylized purple paw print. The plates arrayed themselves over holo-Beast Boy's body, making the tiny green Titan into a modern-day knight.

"Beast Boy's armor is comprised of a composite of titanium and unstable molecules," explained Robin, "And it cost enough to put a down payment on our own satellite. But he'll be the only armored dinosaur on the block." Beast Boy said nothing, and hardly looked at the armor. His eyes were miles away as Robin shifted to the last hologram, a replica Teen Wonder dressed in a slick, capeless, black-and-red suit with a curved bird silhouette over his chest. "And I made a little something for myself," he concluded. The holograms faded, returning their attention to the real Robin.

"Not that we don't appreciate you rooting through our lives and pigeonholing our abilities," Cyborg said, wholly unappreciative, "But what do you expect us to do with all this hardware? Are we supposed to charge through the tunnels and wipe out an army head-on?"

Robin turned back to his keyboard, calling forth a map of Jump City to hover in the air. Three differently colored dots–red, blue, and green—appeared over the defunct hologram of Titans Tower. "Coordinating an attack of this size with humans is tricky," he explained. "With robots, it's easier, because they can be controlled simultaneously from a single point. But that's also their weakness."

The three dots moved together over the map's bay, and then split apart once they'd reached the city. "Three teams," Robin said. "Starfire and I cut through the northern quadrants. Tek, Cyborg, you move south." The red and blue dots split, beeping merrily across the upper and lower portions of the city map. "Raven, you and Beast Boy remain on the peripheral," he said, indicating the lingering green dot. "The first two teams triangulate the source of Slade's control signal. Then Raven teleports to the source, where you shut it down at any cost while we approach from the outside as backup. If this works, the drones will lose their coordination and default to preprogrammed tactics. With no clear orders, they'll likely retreat."

"Remote-controlled robot armies, blowing up a transmitter..." Tek scratched through her short black hair, frowning. "This sounds so familiar. Didn't you guys show me a movie like this?"

Robin shocked her with his grave tone. "This is no movie. This is no game. Slade's about to launch a real war and our city is ground zero. You all need to grow up and realize that the old rules of engagement don't apply anymore. And you need to decide right now," he told them, scowling, "If you're prepared to commit to this." Then his face softened slightly. "I know you aren't ready for something like this. It's unfair to ask of you, but I can't do this alone."

Starfire was the first to speak. "I will fight," she said. A hard look settled into her eyes as she stared back at Robin.

That same look mixed with Cyborg's glare. "I'm in."

"Um..." Tek eyed their stony faces and tried to mimic the effect with her own features. "You can count on me."

Raven cast a furtive glare at the rookie Titan before shifting that glare back to Robin. "Fine," she said.

There came an unbearable silence as their chain ended at Beast Boy. He stared at the metal grating, and did not respond to any amount of nudging by Cyborg. His green fingers wrapped around the framed photo of himself and Terra. Greasy smudges blurred the couple's smiles into obscurity. Finally, in a miniscule voice, he spoke into his chest: "I can't."

His decision was met with more silence. Only Tek gasped, and said, "Gar, you have to—" But as she stepped toward him, Cyborg's hand enveloped her shoulder, dragging her back. When she looked up at her restraint, Cyborg shook his head.

Raven waited until their silent conversation had played itself out. Then she said, "I can take out the transmitter by myself."

Nodding, Robin said, "Okay. We can't launch until Slade begins the attack and activates his signal. Any calls we make to warn the city or bring in reinforcements would be detected, so you're all restricted from communications access prior to the attack." Their abortive protests were met by his upturned hand and hard glower. "Take some time to familiarize yourself with you equipment," he told them. Then he deactivated the console and walked away, giving no regard to the glares digging into his back.

Tek, Cyborg, and Raven stared after Robin as he climbed the stairs. "This is my first war," said Tek. Looking anxiously to either Titan, she asked, "Is he always this doomy?"

Starfire watched on and said nothing. Her warrior's stoicism melted and pooled in the downward curve of her mouth.

* * *

Clasping the gold-black edge of his cape into his collar, Robin stood at his equipment locker and tested the confines of his fresh uniform. The green leather of his glove creaked as his fingers flexed into fists. It felt good, but somehow not quite right, to be back in his Titan garb. Satisfied anyway, he shut his locker door and turned. 

Cyborg stood before him, sandwiching Robin against the long row of lockers. His arms crossed over his chest as he glared down at Robin. "We need to talk," Cyborg told him.

A wave of ginger emerged from behind Cyborg, carrying with it Starfire's hesitant expression. "Please," she said. "It is very important."

The high edge of Robin's mask quirked. He stared down the pair for a moment, and then circumnavigated them, clanking toward the stairs atop metal soles. "I'm listening," he called back.

Starfire floated after him, followed fast by Cyborg. "We wish to express concern regarding the clandestine attitude relating to this facility that you have demonstrated," she said.

Falling into step behind Robin, Cyborg tailed him down the stairs to the command deck. "You've been keeping secrets again, man," Cyborg said. "You should have told us about this place. You should have let us help you."

Robin never strayed or slowed in his trek to the central console around which they had met. Without looking back, he asked, "Would you have listened to Slade's apprentice?"

The sharp tone stopped Cyborg cold. He sucked a slow breath through his teeth. "All right," he said slowly, "I deserved that a little."

"Robin, we are merely concerned for you," Starfire said. She landed next to Robin at the console's central control panel. Her hand hovered over his shoulder, not quite daring to brave his icy demeanor. Pulling back, she continued in a soft voice, "I...We worry when you keep secrets. You become angered and withdrawn. Your manner becomes brusque. Your eye begins to dance in a most unsettling fashion...much as it is now," she said, growing quiet at the tic in his scowl.

The deck quaked with Cyborg's approach. "Why don't you trust us?" he demanded. "If you had just told us, we could have helped you. Maybe we even could have stopped Tara before she did all this damage."

A shelf slid out of the console with Robin's touch of a button, chasing Starfire back. The shelf's padded interior cradled four distinct shapes that both Cyborg and Starfire examined while Robin called up a hologram of their tunnel system. Starfire lifted a large, long-needled syringe filled with clear liquid, and held it up for Robin to see. "What is this?" she asked.

Robin didn't have to look. "Fast-acting neurotoxin with a promethium-tipped delivery system. It'll pierce any animal's hide to inject a dose guaranteed to neutralize the target in seconds."

Cyborg said nothing as he examined the three remaining objects in the shelf. His eye gravitated to a small, flat device crafted from chrome and circuitry. A cursory scan revealed the device's true purpose. "This is the most potent EMP grenade I've ever seen," he uttered.

"Mmm," grunted Robin.

Continuing across the black foam, Cyborg's fingertips plucked a smooth, dark stone from the shelf and held it in his palm. A symbol identical to the one on the stone Beast Boy had discovered glinted in its polished surface. He set it down and glared at the back of Robin's head. "You were going to take us out," he said in a hoarse hush.

"I was ready to," Robin said. His intense focus rested in the seismographic display hovering over the console. The earth-quaking march of Slade's army spilled through the green tunnel miniature in slithering red rows. Typing new commands into the console superimposed a city map over the tunnels so Robin could track their troop deployment. "I didn't know who the traitor was. I had to be prepared," he added.

The cold, empty look in Robin's face trickled up Cyborg's glare and flooded his stomach. Ice frosted his voice as Cyborg turned and stalked away. "I guess you were," he uttered.

Starfire watched Cyborg go, and then returned to the open shelf. The last space in its black foam held a pair of small, silver discs. She picked up one of the coin-sized devices. Her finger traced its edge, and came back with a faint film of red. Rubbing her thumb and finger together, she looked up at Robin with a numb expression. "These are the nullifiers that the Joker utilized on me," she said.

"They would have negated Terra's geokinesis," Robin said offhandedly.

"And my abilities," she added. When Robin said nothing, she grasped his shoulder and spun him away from his holograms. His eyes narrowed upon her pleading features. "Tim, please speak to me!"

A long moment crawled between them. Robin's expression never budged as he said, "The mask is on. We talked about this."

She tossed her head, throwing her hair back in exasperation. "Stop! Cease speaking thusly!" Grasping his shoulders, Starfire pushed her face into his, forcing him to deal with the hurt in her eyes. "Tell me you feel betrayed by Tara. Tell me the thought of using these...these...these horrible things on me in turn makes _you_ feel horrible!" She shoved the nullifiers between them, making him see. "Say you feel grateful that we are alive! Say you are afraid of what must come next." Starfire looked down, trembling, as she begged him in a whisper, "Tell me you love me. If for nothing else, prove to me that you are still there, so I can remain certain of our feelings. Show me that these horrible things you have prepared are not the real you, Tim."

Robin's empty eyes stared back, reflecting her mournful features twice. "We don't have time for this. Slade's army has almost complete underground coverage of every major point of the city." He returned to the console in a rush of black cape. "And it's 'Robin.'"

Starfire watched him sift through holograms as though she were not there. She searched every inch of his profile, but to no avail. The young man she had held earlier that night was nowhere in the hard scowl of his mask. Her trembling hand clenched and opened, releasing a pile of jagged nullifier components that clattered through the floor. Then she stalked away, little caring which direction her leaden legs carried her.

* * *

Looking through the grate on which she knelt, Tek stared down as the cold exchange between Robin and Starfire ended. Her voyeuristic worry ended in a yelp as the deck quaked beneath her. Tek fell back as Cyborg ascended the steps, his angry feet echoing through the modular floor. He walked right past her on his way to the opposite stairs and the next level without so much as a glance in her direction. "Cyborg!" she called after him, scrambling to her feet. "Vic, wait up!" 

The next set of stairs rattled underfoot at his ascent. "Bad time, kid. Not now," he said.

"Vic, wait," Tek cried. She reached the foot of the stairway as he reached its halfway landing. As he turned to finish his climb, she stamped her foot and shouted, "We can't have two of you freezing everyone out!"

Cyborg stopped and looked down. With a deep sigh, he rubbed his eyes. "Sorry," he said. In a calmer tone, he said, "What is it?"

Her finger led their gazes to the highest level of the secret cavern. Seated on its outer ring was a tiny green mote that hadn't moved in hours. "It's Gar. You have to talk to him. He listens to you."

His face fell. "Oh. This again."

Tek wouldn't be swayed. "Vic, what Robin said really freaked me out. We need Gar. He needs to know we need him." As Cyborg stared up the stairs again, she ran after him. "He won't listen to me, but he listens to you."

The slender grasp she wrapped around his hand stopped him again. Cyborg turned around, careful not to clip her sorrowful expression with his elbow on the narrow stairway. "Look, kid, I know you're scared. I'm feeling pretty shaky myself. But Gar's made his choice, and we have to respect that."

Protest gathered on Tek's lips, but a new set of footsteps vibrated through the stairs, quieting her. She craned her neck around Cyborg and spied Raven gliding down toward them. Like the rest of them, she had found a uniform among the staggering amount of equipment Robin had amassed on the sly to replace her toasted civilian clothes. "Raven!" Tek said.

Raven parted the pair with a gesture. "Don't let me interrupt. Just passing through."

"Raven, hold on," Tek said. She stepped in front of the sorceress with arms akimbo. "Talk to Vic. Tell him to talk to Gar."

Unearthly eyes drilled into Tek's very soul, disquieting Tek and dropping her back a few steps. Those eyes then swung to Cyborg in a silent question. Cyborg shrugged. Nodding, Raven stepped around Tek's arm while Cyborg continued up. Neither Titan paid attention to the faltering protests Tek mustered as she watched her support vanish in opposite directions.

Tek chased after Raven with frantic steps. "Raven!" she called at the back of the blue hood. "Raven, hold on. You could talk to Gar. He listens to you." As Raven continued, unmoved by Tek's words, the rookie Titan insisted, "He does! I know you don't like Gar, but he really respects you, I can tell. Please!"

Raven stopped at the bottom of the stairs before she looked back. "No," she said. "Beast Boy is conflicted. He's uncertain. That makes him useless to us."

"But..."

In her calm, gravelly voice, Raven continued, "And if I thought we didn't need every last iota of help, I'd keep you out of this, too." Tek's mouth flapped soundlessly as Raven continued, hardly batting an eye. "You're unreliable, inexperienced, overpowered, and you're out of control."

Realization dawned in Tek's face. "Raven," she said, "If this is about what happened at the bookstore... I'm sorry. But I'm still—"

"You're not one of us," Raven told her. Her voice never wavered in the face of Tek's devastated look. "The only reason I voted you on the team is because you're a threat to yourself and everyone around you. You don't have a power. You have a problem. That collection of track marks on your arm is proof." Turning, Raven stalked across the equipment deck in a whirl of blue cloak. "Now, stop worrying about Beast Boy, and start worrying about whether or not you'll shoot Cyborg in the back because your 'little helpers' aren't enough anymore."

For a moment, Tek could not speak. She felt betrayed all over again, as though Raven had grasped Terra's knife and twisted it in Tek's chest for the sheer fun of it. In a hoarse whisper, she finally managed to say, "You're a horrible person."

Raven paused to consider this for a moment. Then she turned her head and nodded. With nothing left to say to Tek, she stepped into a dark pool of ether appearing in the grated floor. The unnatural blackness pulled Raven in without a sound, and then vanished behind the tip of her hood.

Tek wallowed in the sudden solitude, rubbing her mottled arm as a snarl of animalistic fury sounded in her head.

* * *

The still air smelled like death no matter where he sat. He had given up trying to escape that stench hours ago. Now he sat at the highest point of Robin's scary hidey-hole with his back bent against the rough stone wall. Charcoal and dust clung to the sweat of his naked skin. Crusted saline dried on his cheeks as he gazed down at the picture nestled in his lap. 

What had he done wrong? Was he too stupid? Did he smell? It was probably the animal smell, everybody always complained about that. Had he neglected her? Had he smothered her? Was he bad at..._that_?

Shadow grew on the wall next to him. The air chilled and stirred, breaking for Raven's stride through solid rock. Her portal closed behind her as she stood before Beast Boy, flanking his picture with blue boots. "Garfield," she greeted him flatly.

Beast Boy did not stir. For the first time since they'd met, he remained totally silent to Raven, even breathing without noise. She had longed for such silence from him for ages. Now she wished he would start babbling, just to maintain some shred of their shattered status quo. But he never even looked up as Raven lowered herself beside him. They sat together, each cross-legged and silent, staring at the picture beneath his chin.

Eerie peace haunted the mismatched pair for what felt like a long time. Raven examined the joyful green boy cradling his girlfriend in their photo. Glancing up, she hardly recognized the real Beast Boy. The mystery became too much for her, and so she broke their silence.

"Was it worth it?" Raven asked him. She shifted, turning and leaning to watch his stony façade. Her otherworldly senses were not fooled, for they balked at the storm raging beneath his glassy stare. "I know you know I know about...you know," she said, momentarily uneasy. "I'm only curious because this little heartbreak of yours has made you do something I never thought you could do. I guess after all those speeches you made about friendship, I expected more from you."

Glancing down indifferently, Raven watched the tiny Titan dots milling separately between the levels of the complex. "For all his bluster, Robin was right," she told him. "There's a good chance we'll lose this one. You could do a lot of good. I know you're not afraid. You aren't smart enough for that. So you must not be going because of her."

Raven waited for a rise from Beast Boy that never came. Her eyes remained on the inner ring below them. Down by the equipment lockers, she watched a teal figure press something into her arm, and she sensed the figure's misery from on high. "You've got quite an advocate in Tek. She thinks I could convince you to come to the fight." Eyeing his face one last time, Raven shook her head and rose. "But I don't think she's right."

Beast Boy unfroze for a sharp breath when a cold, gentle hand rested atop his hair. He looked up, following the dark sleeve above his forehead to Raven's face. Her expression bordered on the apologetic. "Tek also believes that I don't like you," she told him without tone. "I'm not sure she's right about that either. I hope you feel better, Garfield."

A new portal opened in the rock, whisking Raven away in a shrinking circle of black. Beast Boy stared after her a moment. His mind rang with silence left by her fingertips, as though she had siphoned the pressure in his head through her icy touch, which lingered still on his scalp. No longer overwhelmed, his gaze returned to the picture.

The silence broke with a howling klaxon. Red light flashed in the hanging fluorescents, painting the vertical tunnel in alternating colors of blood and dark. The Titans below him tensed as Robin's voice echoed from hidden speakers: "_Titans. It's started._"

Beast Boy watched the deck below. His friends gathered one by one, until all that remained of the Teen Titans had lined up along the alcoves of the command deck. The doors to the alcoves opened as one, allowing each Titan into the storehouse of the armaments Robin had gathered for them. One by one, each of Beast Boy's friends vanished behind the closing doors of their alcoves.

Finally, only one remained, casting a violet glance up at him. Their eyes locked for a split second. Beast Boy had to look away first, for he could not stand the understanding that flooded him through her gaze. When he looked again, she was gone, whisked behind the sweeping door of her alcove.

The klaxon blared on. The lights flared and fell, flared and fell. Beast Boy clutched his knees and buried his face in his picture. His hurt twisted in his stomach, becoming something ugly.

The calm ended.

The war began.


	32. Resurrection

False dawn hovered over the skyline of Jump City, haloing its metropolitan towers of steel and glass in faint colors of warmth. The city remained quiet in its slumber. A winter chill nipped the late fall wind as it blew litter through the empty streets.

Peace succumbed to a series of flashing lights that rose from the center of each street intersection. The yellow lights heralded the opening of one of the Titan's transport tunnel entrance, and were meant to keep anyone from accidentally entering the tunnels, or worse, launching their car off the back of the street that ramped upward to open the downward slope of the tunnel's entrance. Under normal circumstances, only one of these tunnels would open at a time for the Titans' vehicles.

Today, they all opened.

Sections of street rose simultaneously within the flashing yellow light poles, opening the city to the pure blackness of the tunnel entrances. That blackness poured from the openings in the shape of men as each tunnel entrance released a stream of commando drones to the streets of Jump City. Monstrous giants marched among Slade's commandos, the large, dome-headed drones that dwarfed their commando cousins. The ground rumbled with their onslaught, trembling as its citizens would when they awoke to an invasion that had come from beneath them without warning.

The commandos marched in formation, filling the streets in a matter of minutes with their ranks. Key points in Jump City—its police stations, City Hall, banks, utilities, and municipal facilities—were first to be surrounded. Hundreds more of the stiff, precise soldiers spread through the less vital portions of the city to pacify the populace that would soon try to take to the streets in panic.

But the real story lay below ground, split between the lairs of two men who were very much alike, and possessed radically different goals. In these lairs, the fate of seven extraordinary teenagers was being reshaped, even as they themselves underwent a startling transformation.

* * *

_How can you see into my eyes_

_Terra knelt in Slade's darkened sanctum,_

___Like open doors_

_Alone._

___Leading you down into my core_

_A two-toned uniform stared up at her,_

___Where I've become so numb_

_Rattling her black Titan shirt_

___Without a soul_

_With an excited pulse._

___My spirit sleeping somewhere cold_

_Try though she might,_

___Until you find it there and_

_Something kept her from the new uniform:_

___Lead_

_A bevy of faces;_

___It_

_Friends twisted with betrayal;_

___Back_

_She could not escape._

___Home_

* * *

_**Wake me up!**_

_Robin climbed into new skin._

___Wake me up inside_

_Taut black lines stretched over sculpted muscle._

_**I can't wake up!**_

_He sealed the suit and its red silhouette on his chest._

___Wake me up inside_

_The stylized avian flexed its wings as he did._

_**Save me!**_

_He donned an arsenal of tools 'round his waist._

___Call my name and_

_He took up the mask_

___Save_

_And lifted it to his eyes._

___Me_

_With one final gesture,_

___From_

_The new Robin came into being,_

___The_

_And smiled._

___Dark_

* * *

_**Wake me up!**_

_Starfire slid into silvery skin._

___Bid my blood to run_

_Its lilac armor cupped her body._

_**I can't wake up!**_

_Gauntlets slid over trembling fists,_

___Before I come undone_

_Which cradled emerald fury,_

_**Save me!**_

_For the betrayal she had suffered._

___Save me from the_

_She bowed her head into her helmet._

___Nothing_

_Donning its visor, she masked her sorrow_

___I've _

_Behind the face of a warrior._

___Become_

* * *

___Now that I know _

_Beast Boy crouched on the command deck,_

___What I'm without_

_Waiting outside his alcove_

___You can't just leave me_

_With a tear-stained picture._

___Breathe into me  
_

_Glaring at the golden-haired photograph,_

___And____ make_

_His tears grew hateful._

___Me_

_His sunken chest swelled_

___Real_

_As he twisted the picture,_

___Bring_

_Cracking its glass while he glared_

___Me_

_Through slitted pupils._

___To life_

* * *

_**Wake me up!**_

_Cyborg stood in his alcove._

___Wake me up inside_

_Armatures stole his implants away,_

_**I can't wake up!**_

_And replaced them with brutal devices of war._

___Wake me up inside_

_Massive forearms latched to his organics._

_**Save me!**_

_Deadly weapons clutched his shoulders._

___Call my name and_

_New armor slid over the old._

___Save_

_A soulless plate descended on armature,_

___Me_

_Sealing to the implants of his face,_

___From_

_Masking him_

___The_

_In a metallic nightmare._

___Dark_

* * *

_**Wake me up!**_

_Clad in her gothic armor,_

___Bid my blood to run_

_Raven stood before four pedestals,_

_**I can't wake up!**_

_Upon each of which a book of magic waited._

___Before I come undone_

_Pushing aside the tempest within her,_

_**Save me!**_

_She opened her mind._

___Save me from the_

_Glowing symbols flowed from the books._

___Nothing_

_Knowledge poured into Raven's chakra,_

___I've_

_Spilling from her eyes with unwanted power._

___Become_

* * *

___Bring_

_Tek rubbed her arm_

___Me_

_In the shadow of more weapons_

___To_

_Meant for the beast inside her._

___Life_

_She closed her eyes,_

_**I've been living a lie,**_

_But couldn't fight the tears._

_**There's nothing inside!**_

_Her armor swallowed her whole._

___Bring_

_Now a deadly leviathan,_

___Me_

_She backed into the augmentation pack,_

___To_

_And became only a weapon._

___Life_

* * *

___Frozen in time_

_Stone Titans littered Slade's empty sanctum,_

___Without your touch_

_Crafted from the cement floor._

___Without your love_

_Terra stood among them, hateful eyes golden._

___Darling_

_Tentacles of stone rose from the floor,_

___Only you_

_Smashing Raven, Starfire, Robin, Cyborg, Tek,_

___Are the life_

_And stopped inches from the frozen face of Beast Boy._

___Among the dead_

* * *

_**All of this, I,**_

_One by one, the Titans' alcoves opened._

_**I can't believe I couldn't see.**_

_Robin strode toward the lift cage,_

_**Kept in the dark,**_

_Followed fast by Cyborg._

_**But you were there in front of me.**_

_Starfire floated after them_

___I've been sleeping a thousand years it seems_

_As Tek lumbered across the deck._

___Got to open my eyes to everything_

_Raven lingered, last to the cage._

_**Without a thought,**_

_She turned to close them in._

_**Without a voice,**_

_Beast Boy caught the sliding door._

_**Without a soul.**_

_He stood before the cage in his armor,_

___Don't let me die here_

_And scowled at Raven's surprise._

_**There must be something more!**_

_He pushed Raven back and turned away,_

___Bring_

_Sealing them in the rattling lift._

___Me_

_Then the Titans ascended from their secret hell,_

___To_

_Rising back into the world._

___Life_

* * *

_**Wake me up!**_

_Terra stared into Beast Boy's stone face,_

___Wake me up inside_

_Crying golden tears._

_**I can't wake up!**_

_Her heart wrenched,_

___Wake me up inside_

_Betrayed,_

_**Save me!**_

_As she lifted her hands._

___Call my name and_

_Stone tendrils rose all about her_

___Save_

_And crashed down through the statue,_

___Me_

_Dashing Beast Boy's smile_

___From_

_Into a thousand shards._

___The_

_Only dust remained._

___Dark_

* * *

_**Wake me up!**_

_Atop their ruined Tower,_

___Bid my blood to run_

_Starfire with Cyborg, Robin with Tek,_

_**I can't wake up!**_

_Raven alone,_

___Before I come undone_

_They took to the sky._

_**Save me!**_

_Beast Boy remained, watching them._

___Save me from the_

_He felt pressure in his gauntleted hand,_

___Nothing_

_And looked down to find_

___I've_

_The broken picture he'd carried with him._

___Become_

* * *

___Bring_

_The two-toned armor clung to Terra_

___Me_

_As she raised its helmet to her head,_

___To_

_And donned the face she had earned._

___Life_

_The last of her old life lay in pieces._

_**I've been living a lie,**_

_Her new life began._

_**There's nothing inside!**_

* * *

___Bring_

_Beast Boy scowled with inhuman eyes,_

___Me_

_And threw her picture off the Tower._

___To_

_As it tumbled, a dark beast took to the sky,_

___Life_

_And chased his friends into battle._

* * *

___Bring Me To Life_ by Evanescence ©2003 


	33. Showdown

_All-Purpose Disclaimer_

**Teen Titans** is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Cartoon Network Inc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit and purely for entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, not to be reproduced without prior consent. Additional information used in creating **Teen Titans: Avatar** courtesy of Titans Tower Online.

* * *

Chaos thundered through the streets of the city, raining red-hot death upon its brave few protectors. Laser fire burned the air over their heads and into the squad car barrier they crouched behind. Burning rubber and ozone choked their shouts as they braved the firefight to return fire. The bark of their rifles chased their bullets into the advancing line of black-clad soldiers. Though their shots did little to slow the enemy's advance, the police refused to retreat, and took courage from the grizzled voice spurring them on from the center of their barricade. 

"Tighten up that south line, mooks!" Lieutenant Smith bellowed, grasping his had as he ducked back behind the wheel well of his squad car. Spread behind the line of cars, his Special Crimes Unit waged a war they weren't prepared for, wearing riot armor that they had discovered firsthand would not stop a laser blast.

The cop's wrinkled face soured as he thought of his family caught somewhere beyond the battalion of robots pinning their backs to their own precinct station. Ever since those idiot Titan tunnels had started spewing soldiers into his streets, his wife and daughter were the only things on his mind. It was all Smith could do to keep the orders and encouragement rumbling from his hoarse throat. He prayed for his family between bursts of his automatic rifle.

One of the towering, dome-headed behemoths disgorged a blue column of shrieking energy that engulfed an entire car of their barrier in sonic chaos. The blast transformed the squad car into a ball of expanding fire and shrapnel that consumed two of his men and blasted five more back. Before the ringing in Smith's ears had faded, he bellowed, "Where the flying hell are my grenades, people?"

A new string of explosions shook the battlefield. Smith looked left and right along their curved barrier, looking past his ducking troops for the latest casualties in their losing fight. Pleasant surprised waited for him in the confused-but-intact faces of the SCU officers down the line. Curiosity overtook his sense, and so Smith lifted his hat and eyes over the hood of his car.

The robot line burst apart in a spray of fire and components, tearing a crater into the black pavement that opened into the sewer and sucked in a silvery behemoth too slow to escape. When more explosions ripped into their ranks from behind, the front-line commando drones turned and fell back, pouring their lasers into a single point far from the overwhelmed police force.

Smith leveled his rifles at the robots' backs and refused to look into the mouth of this gift horse. "Something's drawing their fire! Shred 'em!" he shouted, and mashed down on his rifle's trigger.

The SCU line erupted with new vigor into their automaton foes, perforating the backs of the drones unopposed. Smith watched lightning leap from the ground behind and through the commandos. Another of the behemoths flew into the air, crashing into a squad of its own commandos. Smith had no time to wonder what was tearing through the robots from opposite their line, and continued firing until his clip ran dry.

Within minutes, the last robot fell, torn apart in a hail of rifle fire, lightning, and explosions. A cheer rang up from the SCU line. "Can it!" Smith bellowed as he hopped the hood of his car. His troops quieted at his scathing look. Smith marched toward the only thing left standing on the battlefield, his trench coat flapping behind him, and shouted, "O'Callaghan! You dead?"

His second-in-command, a redheaded man with more wrinkles than he deserved, jumped the barrier after him. As O'Callaghan caught up, Smith approached the six figures standing ankle-deep in the remains of the commando squad. The six colorful teenagers acted as the eye of the storm, a beacon of unnatural calm that Smith entered warily. "Well, isn't this a pretty picture?" he grumped.

The lead teen wiped hydraulic fluid from his broadsword on the sleeve of his jacket. Unkempt brows descended over his dark eyes, which rested on Smith's sour face without fear. "What's your situation, Lieutenant?" asked Jason Hawke.

Smith eyed the team: their dirty blond leader, an urban knight with shouldered broadsword; a towering, elegant young woman of incredible muscle and stretched, tattered clothes; a pale, ghostly boy in a black bodysuit with copper lightning seams; a shorter boy, begoggled, with a glistening arm of silvery metal; a taller boy of similar complexion with trendy hair and whirling revolvers; a tiny boy, blue-skinned, trying to hid the terror evident on his face.

"You're the little hoods operating out of Jump Central," said Smith. "The church kids."

Magnum holstered his revolvers with a snort and elbowed his little brother. "Hear that, Strip? We're the Church Kids." He tugged at the gratuituous Streetbeat 'S' tagged on his shirt and pants, and added, "Seriously, it's all over us. Crack a newspaper or something, man."

A curious tilt came into Stripwire's examination of the annoyed police lieutenant. His goggles reflected Smith's unpleasant expression. "Are you injured, Lieutenant?" he asked with preternatural calm.

"The city's crawling with those things," Jason said, and kicked a severed commando head. "We got swamped in Central, so we thought we'd come here looking for help.

Hovering high over Jason's shoulder, Queenie's face crinkled. "Could've told you the cops wouldn't be any help," she grumbled, and challenged Jason's dirty look with one of her own.

Smith drew a fresh ammo clip from his vest and slammed it into his rifle. Behind him, O'Callaghan limped to their gathering, eyeballing the teens suspiciously. O'Callaghan's eyes narrowed on Magnum. "I think that's the kid that blew up that bookstore a couple of months back," he said.

"We have to save them, Mag," Magnum said in a cartoonish impersonation of Jason's voice, rolling his eyes. "We need their help."

Jason stepped up to Smith, who checked over his loaded rifle. "Any chance of help? We can't get hold of the Teen Titans." He held up his gunmetal communicator, a replica of the Titans' devices with a graffiti 'S.' "Any word?" he asked.

"Their tower blew up," Smith said. He watched the blunt news impact on their young faces. "We were just putting together rescue teams when their dopey tunnels opened up with these robots. If they haven't shown for this fracas, chances are they're already dead."

The eyes of every cop and teen on the battlefield rose skyward at a shrill, mournful cry that filled the city from ocean to horizon. Glinting green in the first rays of dawn, an immense pterodactyl twisted from the clouds in a dive that swept it low over the police barricade. Higher above, a great bird of impossible darkness spread its wings and soared amidst the skyscrapers.

Two nimble sprites darted from the sky and tossed their armored payloads. The heavy metal duo dropped into the city several blocks away from Smith's stand, quaking the ground as they landed. Then the sprites soared high, spreading their arms. Dazzling light leapt from their fingers and toes, burning half-crosses into the air a mile wide and long. The two sprites hovered over the city, holding their brilliant letters in the air for every last invader in the city to take notice.

Jason grinned at the red and green Ts burning in the morning sky. He didn't know who was responsible for the attack on the city, but now that the Titans were calling them out, Jason didn't envy them in the slightest. But nor was he about to take the invasion lying down. "You might want to get those eyes checked, Smith," he said. Then, sobering, he looked back at the rest of the Streetbeat. "Meanwhile, we're gonna take the heat off of those glory hogs. Knowing them, they've got some stupid plan that'll kill them unless we give 'em some help."

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_By Cyberwraith9_

* * *

_Showdown_

Pitted black tar tore beneath Cyborg's feet as he slid onto the street at one hundred miles an hour. He gritted his teeth, waiting for the inertia of his new, bulky prosthetics to wear out against the scar he was carving into Jump City's face. The tactical radar in his heads-up display pinged Tek's similar descent behind him. Even larger and heavier than he, Tek took longer to stop, and slid past him in a spray of blacktop.

When the pair of them stood together in the empty morning street, Cyborg spared his handiwork a brief examination. The heavy expansion pack of his design wrapped around Tek's blue and white armor with a quartet of rotary cannons, two on her shoulders and one on either arm. Rockets protruded from her back assembly with dozens of small, red-tipped projectiles, making her appear from behind like a porcupine of war. Tek's expression hidden behind her helmet's scowl, Cyborg nevertheless garnered her apprehension from the quake in her gait. "You okay?" he asked her.

Tek glanced back at Cyborg. Whereas Robin's alcoves had wrapped her in a bevy of obvious, phallic weapons of destruction, Cyborg's transformation was of a more subtle nature. His chest plate, legs, arms, and shoulders had all been enlarged to nearly double what they had been, and no longer bore his blue circuitry pattern. Instead, all of Cyborg glistened with flat gray alloy. The human half of his face was protected by a glossy black plate. There was nothing visibly human left to him, and that alone made her feel worse.

Lifting her arms, Tek waved the long cannons hooked into her armor. "I feel like a walking tank," she said.

Though she could not see it, Cyborg smiled as he nodded. "Stay frosty," he told her. The light from Robin and Starfire's flares flickered out as the airborne duo began their half of the mission. It was time for Cyborg and Tek to begin theirs. Cyborg touched the side of his head, activating his communicator. "This is Blue One. I'm starting my scan for the drones' control signal."

"_Red One copies,_" Robin's crackling voice replied. "_Red Team moving north. Green Team, acknowledge._"

"_I want to be a different color,_" Raven deadpanned over the airwaves, giving Cyborg another unseen smile.

"No contact with the robo-parade," said Cyborg. The last of his good humor evaporated as he scanned the ominously empty city. Frightening silence echoed through the skyscraper walls of the street. Cyborg felt a sliver of temptation to begin shooting the cars parked along either sidewalk, just to break the silence.

The temptation proved unnecessary before he could bother to resist it. "Cyborg, there!" Tek's pointing finger was lost behind her weaponry, but Cyborg followed her rotary cannon's aim to the third story of a building at their backs. Clinging to the windows and masonry, a dozen commando drones glared down at them, swiveling their necks at unnatural angles as they hung upside-down. The commando squad dropped in unison and landed in a crouch a stone's throw from the teched teens.

The mix of signals in Cyborg's HUD fluctuated wildly as the commandos advanced on them. Cyborg watched the commandos through the many signals' wave pattern, and said, "I've almost got it. Tek, cover me."

Tek lifted her arms, glad for the thugly visor covering her bitten lip. "Right," she answered. "I..." Then she stopped. "Cyborg, my plasma repeaters aren't working," she cried.

A snort fogged in Cyborg's faceplate. He'd warned her to read the manual, apparently without effect. "Your old weapons are overridden. The new ones are on a similar neurokinetic trigger/target system."

The inky commandos glided closer still. The soulless whites of their eyes poured over Tek. "What?" she shouted.

"Look, point, and think about your new guns!"

Arms raised, eyes wide, Tek stumbled back and thought of nothing but her new guns as the first commando leapt upon her. The barrel of her cannon whirled furiously on her arm with a high-pitched whine. Tek's frightened scream was lost in the sound of hundreds of rounds tearing from her cannon. The gunfire drummed through her armor, deafening her to everything else while bullets too fast to be seen ripped the commando to shreds.

Shrapnel rained down on Tek as her burst fire ceased. She squealed as the bulk of the commando shattered against her armor. The blow didn't even stagger her. Before her shock cleared, the remaining commandos charged, spurred on by the death of their comrade. A stray thought spun the cannons at her shoulders and lit them with bulleting bursts. With flailing arms and shoulders, Tek obliterated the commandos and a great deal of the landscape behind them.

Her cannons grinded to a halt. Her stunned gape continued. The commando wrecks clattered to the pockmarked ground as her long cannons scraped the ground.

"Holy crap," she breathed.

"Having trouble locking down the transmission," Cyborg said to himself. He touched the edge of his faceplate, scowling through the HUD. "Almost...got it! Red Team," he shouted into their comm link, "I've got a vector. Lock in on a carrier wave broadcasting at four-eighty megahertz."

A tense moment passed, and then Starfire spoke. "_I have it. I am transmitting my information to Raven now._"

"_It's a radio station downtown,_" Robin said. "_He must be using their transmitter for his control signal._"

"Why build what you can steal?" muttered Cyborg.

"_Green Team, teleport to the transmitter and take it out. Red and Blue Teams are on distraction/destruction. Take out everything even remotely robotic,_" Robin ordered.

Broken from her trance, Tek's visor snapped around to Cyborg. "Except us!" she squeaked.

"_Good luck,"_ Starfire added. Then the channel crackled silent.

Cyborg scowled down either direction of the dead street. Aside from the pile of scrap spread before Tek, there was no sign of the war that threatened their city. "Let's move, Tek," he grunted. "Commandant Bird wants us to—"

The seismic sensors in his soles shrieked a warning too late as the street around them tore itself apart. Scarlet lasers and obsidian claws worked up from the blacktop's wounds, ripping chunks of pavement and sidewalk into the cavernous tunnels below. Up and down the streets, cracks widened into canyons, creating crawlways from which Slade's robotic forces poured forth. Dozens of commandos crawled up from the hellish black of the tunnels. They poured over everything, quickly forming into squads to coordinate the fire of the potent lasers each commando clutched. Through larger gaps in the street came larger drones, the dome-headed behemoths that towered over the commandos. Walking tanks, the behemoths took up position behind the growing army, ready to protect their smaller cousins.

Cyborg grabbed Tek by her rocket array and jumped hard. His new legs carried the ungainly weight higher than his old implants could have dreamt of. The hang time gave him ample opportunity to watch the destruction of the street from below, and to note exactly how bad of a situation in which he and Tek would land.

A low, rumbling chuckle echoed from the gaps in the street. At the center of the growing drone army, a great gray fist burst through the pavement. Stone hands widened the hole, and then clasped either side to lift a monstrous square head and shoulders. Cinderblock emerged from the hole in total, raining pavement particles as he tore passage onto the battlefield. His tiny red eyes fell upon Cyborg in the sky, and narrowed. Another chuckle, more menacing than the first, haunted the distance between them.

Cratering in the sidewalk, Cyborg set the startled Tek aside and assessed their new, direr situation. The drones continued to multiply from the understreet. His radar and scanners were picking up new activity not three blocks away, indicating more reinforcements to shore up the drones' staggering numbers. Locking glares with Cinderblock, Cyborg said, "Forget moving. Looks like we've got plenty of fight here."

"That's Cinderbrick, right?" Tek asked, straining her memory. "We're gonna be okay, aren't we? I mean, you beat him before by yourself, and you didn't have all this Omega Battle whats-it."

A haunting shriek joined Cinderblock's rumbling laugh. Purple sludge bubbled from the cracks in the pavement, pooling at the head of the drones' growing formation. That sludge twisted and swirled into a towering nightmare with yellow eyes fixed upon the teens. Plasmius shrieked again and oozed forward, leaving a glistening trail of glassy burns that smoldered in the blacktop behind him.

Plasmius's entrance transfixed the Titans until an arc of blue lightning blew out the street lamp over their heads. They ducked reflexively, watching the lightning jump from lamp to lamp, from neon sign to traffic signal, burning out everything it touched. Then the lightning struck the ground next to Plasmius and coalesced into a loosely cohesive shape. A diskette face surfaced in the lightning to smirk at the teens, and say, "Overload will enjoy baking the tinned humans."

Tek's cannons whirled to life as she drew alongside Cyborg. "Someone up there must listen to me when I say dumb things like that," she decided aloud.

Cyborg flexed his hands into fists. "Sure seems like it," he agreed.

* * *

A click in Starfire's helmet accompanied their collective communications' end. She bobbed high above the north-side skyscrapers, gazing down at the lines of commandos and behemoths that winded through the city. Dawn's colors glinted in her silvery under-armor and splashed across the lilac plates cupping her body, painting her trappings of war with a spectrum of warm tones. With a single breath to steel her nerves, she inverted and dove, pouring the entirety of her boundless joy into a deadly descent. 

Already, there were bursts of bloody light in the street below, bursts that were ach instantly followed by a blossoming explosion. Starfire followed the scarlet lights down, down, down into the very heart of the battle. She flipped and landed heavily on the shoulders of a white behemoth, driving its shattering frame into the pavement while she selected her next targets.

The inner curves of her armor pulled at the starwave energy she summoned, and guided it through her heavy bracers. Though unsettling to have her energy so readily redirected, it allowed her to form a pair of starbolts much faster than she could have without the armor. The emerald energy pooled in her hands. She drew back and hurled the 'bolts into a charging commando. Fire erupted from the robot's back at the starbolts' impact, and it toppled back, smoking in ruin.

Laser fire struck Starfire in the back. She jumped at the heat in her armor and spun, ready to counter the attack. Even as she drew two new shimmering starbolts, she watched scarlet heat slam into the trio of commandos, taking them apart the hard way. Starfire traced the scarlet's trajectory back to its source, a glowing pair of gloves guided by a soulless glower. "I had them," Starfire shot.

Robin responded with an animalistic howl as he plunged his fist into the chest of a commando. His hand exploded from the commando's back and flared, pouring liquid scarlet into a white behemoth lumbering at him. The behemoth staggered, its optics smoldering and shattered, and was bowled over by the commando husk Robin threw into its chassis. Red-fisted, Robin spun into the air, unleashing a circle of bird bolts that felled a full dozen commandos who thought to overwhelm the Teen Wonder in numbers.

Starfire would not content herself to be a spectator. She plucked a street lamp from its moorings and swung hard, smashing its distant light against the hardened back of a behemoth. As her opponent stumbled, she shot up the length of her dropped lamp and dug her fingers into the robot's cracked armor. Snarling, she tore the behemoth apart down the middle and swung its body like clubs, hammering those commands unfortunate enough to attack her.

As they fought, Starfire's glowing eyes drifted to Robin more often than she would have liked. Terra's betrayal had left her heart torn; looking upon the cold, detached rage behind Robin's mask ripped that wound wide open. Starfire felt her flight falter just a second before she pulled her gaze from the scarlet carnage Robin had become, and channeled the ache pouring from her wounded heart into liquid anger, which she hurled through the automatons attacking her city.

In mere moments, the street was thick with a blanket of broken machines. Robin and Starfire settled atop the greasy, blackened debris, their breath quickened with excitement. The immediate area was quiet, but distant sounds of battle and distant flashes in the dawn sky assured the Titans that their work was far from done. "We'll sweep along Second Avenue," Robin said, glaring toward the sunrise. "Let's move."

His feet had hardly left the ground when one of the more intact commando drones stirred amongst the debris. Its haloed face ejected with a small snap, revealing a cracked screen in the commando's cranium that crackled with static snow. As Robin swung around, bird bolts burning in his palms, the broken drone began speaking in a low, smooth transmitted voice: "_You are a tenacious little metahuman, Robin. I must applaud you for surviving._"

The commando's head erupted into flames, disintegrating under the force of Robin's bolt. No sooner had the Teen Wonder hurled his bird bolt, another fallen commando's face popped from its housing. "_But surely you don't believe you can destroy all my soldiers. Such naiveté is unbecom—"_

Another bird bolt silenced the transmission. Another commando threw out its face, revealing yet another screen to continue, "_—ing of my once-apprentice."_

Starfire watched in silent worry as Robin's shoulders heaved. "I'm not about to take criticism from a general who's too cowardly to lead his tin soldiers himself," Robin spat, and blew apart the third commando.

When a new commando became Slade's voice, Robin held his readied bird bolt. This commando's intact screen held two lines of glowing numbers: coordinates, which Robin thumbed furiously into his communicator. "_Then what say we discuss the terms of my surrender in person?_" asked Slade.

The communicator took Slade's coordinates and turned them into a glowing dot on a tiny city map. Robin took note of the address, and then snapped his communicator shut with such force as to crush it into yellow shards. "Keep to the plan, Starfire," he said.

Starfire followed him into the air, surprised at the sudden speed of his flight. "I will not let you—"

She almost slammed into Robin as he stopped abruptly, turning with such rage in his face as to startle her back. "Don't question me," he warned her in a dangerous calm. "Not on this. Not on anything."

Robin flew off in a streak of black, leaving Starfire to burn in the memory of his empty scowl. Her face slowly straightened, and she soared in the opposite direction, her thoughts intent on the coordinates she had memorized from Slade's message.

* * *

Weathered girders stood together in a tall, boxy antenna almost big enough to be considered a building unto itself. A beacon blinked merrily atop its tip to warn foolhardy pilots to steer clear of the antenna and the squat skyscraper upon which it sat. One of the older structures of the relatively new metropolis, the antenna and its skyscraper base occupied the heart of Jump City, and even stacked were shorter than most of the gleaming towers of glass and steel surrounding them. Four luminous letters glowed on the side of the skyscraper, spelling out the ID of the station to which the antenna belonged: WJMP, _The Jump_, a radio station famous for its nationally syndicated morning show, _Skip and the Hoppers_. 

Intense gloom sparked and spread between the struts of the antenna. When the gloom receded, it unveiled a mismatched and armored pair on the rooftop.

Raven closed the gateway with a thought while Beast Boy shivered behind her. The white plates of his armor rattled against one another, causing her brow to quirk as she glanced back at him. Beast Boy forced himself to straighten and shake off the lingering cold of Raven's transport under her icy scrutiny. "So," he said, glancing up at the blinking tower of girders around them, "This is Slade's transmitter."

"Genius, in a simple way," said Raven, joining in his examination of the radio tower. "All he had to do was pirate their airwave from the source, and suddenly he can transmit to the entire city at once."

Beast Boy rolled his shoulders, once more rattling their oversized, paw-printed plates. "Guess he never counted on our ability to smash the crap out of stuff that isn't ours," he quipped halfheartedly. "You wanna do it, or should I—"

There was no rumble, no quake. Hardly a whisper of grinding stone emerged as the brown masonry at Beast Boy's feet flowed up into his jaw as a tight, clenched fist with a terrific _crack_. Beast Boy flipped high, landing on his back with a clamoring clatter of Kevlar and plate mail. His eyes lolled and glazed as his head fell back onto the roof.

Raven watched the stone arm recede smoothly into the roof with that same grinding whisper. Leery of the ground, she floated up on ethereal winds that flapped the hem of her black leather cloak. She glanced at Beast Boy, watching the shallow rise and fall of his chest, until a slow applause turned her eyes toward the nearest strut of the antenna.

A helmeted figure leaned against the girders, her outline curved with the promise of a puberty yet unfinished. Reminiscent of Slade's armor, her own taut protection clung in alternating colors of midnight black and rusted earth. Her gauntleted hands pounded together mockingly as she stared Raven down through slitted gaps in her two-toned mask. "You actually survived the Tower raid," she said, her haunting voice reverberating through the grille of her mask. "I'm a little impressed."

Raven tensed. It was a struggle to keep her face blank as she glowered into the baby blue eyes set deep in that mask. "Hello, Tara," she deadpanned. Her heavy, gothic boots skittered against the roof as she settled herself between the Apprentice and the insensate Beast Boy. Lowering her hood, Raven said, "You've got a new look to go with your career change."

"Oh, there was never a change," Terra said breezily, and rose from the girder to square off against the lone Titan. "I was always going to put you snooty tee-dwellers in your place."

"How tragically monotonous," Raven said.

Tilting her helmet, Terra said, "I like your duds, too. Discount armor meets goth slut. Bet it drives your girlfriend wild."

Terra began to shuffle around Raven, trying to incite a dueling circle between them. But Raven stepped back and around, refusing to let Terra have a clear shot at Beast Boy. It might not have mattered; as her sneak attack on Beast Boy had demonstrated, Terra possessed a new (or perhaps merely unveiled) control over her geokinesis that Raven scarcely believed. Of course, Raven vowed to die before she would admit to being impressed.

A smirk bled into Terra's mocking tone. "Well? Ain't 'cha gonna ask me why, Blackbird?" Adopting a faux-tragic tone, she sobbed, "How could you betray us? Won't you rejoin us, be a Titan again, and find redemption and love in our screwed-up little clique?"

Raven's eyes narrowed. "No. You were never a Titan, and I couldn't care less." In a cruel moment of inspiration, she smirked, and added, "But I am curious about how many more times you can hurt Beast Boy before it gets boring."

The eyes in the two-toned mask turned to ice. "Don't you talk about Gar," growled Terra.

"Betrayed and sucker-punched inside of twelve hours," Raven said, forcing her smirk to grow. "Do you think anyone ever made a worse choice of girlfriend? Beast Boy must be a masochist. Or maybe he's just dumber than I thought."

The roof cracked and rolled in a wave, throwing Terra at Raven with alarming speed. Terra struck Raven in a full-body tackle that took both girls down. They rolled against one another, a mess of clawing hands and inarticulate curses. Hair yanking. Biting. Kneeing. Elbowing. The conflict, months in the making, exploded between the two powerful women in a hairball of fervent brawling. Were her teeth not occupied with Terra's thumb, Raven might have sincerely laughed.

Terra ended the contest atop Raven, straddling the dark sorceress. Her hands crushed Raven's pale, elegant throat as she snarled, "Don't talk about Gar, witch! Just shut your ugly mouth!" Dusty sandstone rose up like liquid, encasing Raven's hands and feet in immutable cuffs. "Don't you **ever** talk about my Gar!" Terra screamed.

A genuine smirk came into Raven's face as she lay prone and trapped beneath Terra. The spells in her armor kept Terra's grasp a micron above her actual flesh, a fact that Terra's gauntleted hands had yet to realize. The potent spells she'd absorbed from the tomes in her alcove buzzed in her thoughts like a hundred songs stuck in one's head at the same time. She grasped one of the spells and thought it at Terra as hard as she could, and said, "Let's not talk at all."

Invisible force slammed into Terra with the grace and control of a runaway bus. Terra flew thirty feet into the air and struck the strut of the antenna with a resonant clang. Then she spun listlessly into the roof, which rippled like water as it caught her. Terra bobbed atop the liquid stone in a daze, stunned.

Pure midnight enveloped Raven's bonds. They shattered as Raven levitated to her feet. The spells in her head sang in chaotic harmony. It was all she could do to resist humming along. Instead, she lifted her hands, plucking another spell from the chaos. Electricity danced between her fingers a moment before they erupted into full lightning. The rooftop's air crackled and popped, lifting Raven's hair with static backwash while white heat flashed between them.

Terra yelped. A blanket of earth rolled over her reflexively. Raven's conjured lightning splashed over the stone, dissipating into a scorch mark. When the onslaught ended, Terra tossed the blackened stone aside and stood. Raven could taste her cold fury all the way across the rooftop. "I'm gonna pull you apart," said Terra.

"Oh, so you do want to talk," said Raven.

The roof shook and flowed together, lifting Terra onto a column that barreled her toward Raven. More stone poured through Terra's hands into jagged spears, which she threw. The spear tips struck Raven's chest and shattered against the invisible buzz of her corset's inlaid magic. Raven didn't budge. Instead, she simply waved her hand, and the column carrying Terra came to a jarring halt. Had Terra's feet not been mired in the malleable stone, she would have shot off the end of the column instead of freezing, wide-eyed, inches from Raven's smugness.

"Fine. Let's reminisce," Raven said.

Raven slapped Terra across the grille. The impact thundered through Terra, quaking through her bones and shattering the stone column beneath her. A storm of pebbles rained down, dumping Terra into their gravelly midst. She struggled against the rocks a moment before she remembered herself, and pushed the gravel hard into an explosion of dust.

The cloudy air swirled around Raven, billowing through her cloak. "After you took off the first time, you must've fallen in with Slade. I'm guessing by the modicum of adequacy you came back with that he helped get you under control. And in return, you played the happy, helpful Judas."

Invisible manacles clamped down around Terra's wrists and yanked her from the ground. She struggled fruitlessly, hovering, her legs kicking a full foot off the roof.

"I'm not very good at lying or feelings," Raven told her floating captive. "Was it hard? You had everybody else fooled. I can read minds, and you almost had _me_ fooled."

Choking on her rage, Terra spat, "I learned a lot from Slade."

Raven's voice frosted over. "Did you learn how to fly?"

The cold grip around Terra's wrists jerked her higher. She cried out as the manacles threw her over the edge of the roof. Separated from her precious earth, disoriented and spinning, Terra fell into gravity's throes and plummeted.

* * *

Piercing ringing stabbed through Tek's ears and into her brain as she tumbled back in a rush of blue energy. Her armor vibrated, and then shook with impact when she plowed back-first into a parked SUV. The large vehicle puckered around her, shielding her from a follow-up beam of blue. Her eyes rolled behind her visor as she sat up out of the twisted car wreck. "So that's what that feels like," she slurred. 

Cyborg growled and ducked as the line of behemoth drones marched forward. The drones' arms were mechamorphed into short, squat cannons that spat shrieking streams of sound at the teenaged heroes, tearing apart the landscape around them. "Using my tunnels, using my sonic tech... When I see Slade, I'm gonna kick his ass so hard, he'll taste foot," he snarled. Then he staggered at a sonic blast that clipped his shoulder.

Before Cyborg could right himself, a blocky, slate fist filled his vision. Stars replaced the fist as it hammered his faceplate, rocking him back. Cyborg struggled to keep on his feet as he shook his visor clear and glared up at a chortling Cinderblock. Cinderblock then brought his fists together in a double hammer blow that Cyborg barely caught.

Struggling under the weight of Cinderblock's fists, Cyborg watched his comparatively tiny hands lose ground to the large slabs of stone with excruciating inevitability. All the while, he was forced to endure the tremendous stone thug's rumbling laughter. "Yeah, you think it's funny 'cause you're stronger than me. Well, here's a news update, Cindy," he said to his foe.

Cyborg straightened his arms effortlessly, shocking Cinderblock back a step. Abundant power coursed through the Titan's ugly, bulky cybernetics, and gathered behind a punch that burrowed into Cinderblock's stomach. The mountainous cretin flew onto his backside, dragging a furrow into the pavement. Stunned, Cinderblock shifted his gaze to his bent stomach. There were long cracks running the width of his body, and oozing black ichor that crept down his dusty skin.

Flashbacks of his days as an athlete came to Cyborg while he ran forward and swept his foot into Cinderblock's bowed head. His kick punted Cinderblock high. Grinning, Cyborg threw his arms up and imitated the cheer of a crowd. But a fresh barrage of lasers and sonic blasts stole back his joviality and forced him to duck anew.

He plunged his fingers into the pavement and lifted, peeling up a layer of blacktop. The cracked road curled in front of him to form a temporary barricade against the drones' fire. Red light glowed through the blacktop, which shuddered against Cyborg's hands with resonant sonics. Gritting his teeth, Cyborg bellowed, "Tek, I could use a little artillery over here!"

The crumpled SUV gave a metallic squeal and spit the hulking Tek from its pucker. She swayed a moment, taking in Cyborg's dire situation behind his crumbling barricade and the approaching mass of drones marching on him. "Oh boy," she breathed. "Uh...Uh...Oh! Multi-rocket Artillery Pack, auto-lock and fire!"

Dozens of targeting rectagles leapt into Tek's vision, painting the line of drones with red boxes. Then Tek fell to her knees beneath the jarring force of two dozen rockets launching from the pack latched behind her armor. The rockets arced high, making Tek wonder if something had gone wrong. Her spent pack ejected from her back and crunched the ground as she stood, dismayed, watching the drone army dismantle Cyborg's shield with wave after wave of energy blast.

"Cyborg," she shrieked, "The rockets aren't—"

Six stories up, the red rockets inverted in tight loops and streaked back toward the ground. Halfway, the rockets split open, each disgorging a quartet of mini-rockets. Propellant lit the tails of the miniature missiles in succession, driving them into the drone line in a fast wave. The collected commandos and behemoths vanished in a string of impossibly bright bursts of white fire. Thunder clapped a hundred times in the space of a heartbeat, shaking the battlefield as the chain explosion consumed Slade's forces. The fire died out as quickly as it had come, leaving a deaf and dazzled Tek to stare dumbly at the twenty yard crater of char and robot corpse her rockets had left.

"Oh. Never mind," Tek shouted over the ringing of her ears.

Then she screamed. A stream of burgundy sludge encircled Tek's chest, lifting her from the street. Chemical flesh burned the paint from her armor with a hiss of smoke as the towering Plasmius swung her two and fro, joining her screams with its inhuman shriek. Tek clawed clumsily at the dripping grasp around her chest, plunging her cannons into the muck, but Plasmius's slime congealed as quickly as she could pull it away. The sickening sizzle continued as its grasp ate away at her protection toward consuming the soft, tender center inside.

Cyborg shoved aside his barrier and ran forward. "Kid!" he shouted. Then he cried out and his body seized up, locked in the embrace of blue lightning. His vision snowed as he watched more of the lightning flow up from the street and collect itself into the amorphous villain, Overload.

A diskette face surfaced in the blue lightning to grin fearsomely. "Overload thinks not, half-flesh. Overload would like you to stay and die with overload," cackled the living lightning.

Electricity danced across Cyborg's obsidian half-mask. His red optic burned with hate as he lifted his grotesquely swollen right arm, pointing its fist in Overload's face. "Overload needs to think again," he grunted.

Overload's laugh came clumsily and artificially, though no less sincere. "Sonics do not affect Overload," the construct reminded Cyborg.

Cyborg's arm split and shifted, forming separated tines reminiscent of a tuning fork. The long tines curved inward in a channel that led back to his elbow. There, a small depression came alive with a ball of writhing, tight fire that smoked in the open air. The light of the miniature sun glinted in Overload's square face.

"Sonics are last season," Cyborg quipped through his grimace. "Plasma is the new black."

The plasma ball shot down its channel and off the end of Cyborg's launcher, and careened through Overload's face with hardly a sound. Overload's body crackled and collapsed through its gaping wound, sucking the villain into itself. A contrail of blue lightning followed the plasma through its exit as it hurtled on toward Cyborg's true target.

As Overload collapsed in a scream, the plasma ball struck Plasmius in the back and detonated. Plasmius burst apart with a shrieking explosion of sewage and yellow fire that turned dawn into noon. Tek tumbled on the shockwave of plasma and bounced on the street like a stone across a pond, finally thumping to rest against a broken parking meter.

Tek lay on her back for a moment, glazed with purple stink, and fought to regain her breath. By the time Cyborg could offer his helping hand, she was almost ready to take it, but did so regardless. He pulled Tek to her feet and wiped her visor clean of the slime with his once-more hand. "You okay, Kid?" he asked her, offering an encouraging smile she could not see.

She ignored the chemical burns on her armor in favor of the long scorch marks electrocuted into Cyborg's body. "What about you?" she asked.

Her question became a startled gasp as Cyborg stepped back and curled up his arms. His arms opened down from the elbows, sprouting long-barreled machine cannons aimed right through Tek's visor. Tek yelped and ducked just as Cyborg's cannons erupted with high-pitched barks and muzzle flashes. His bullets whizzed over her helmet and tore dustily into Cinderblock, who had stood poised to snatch Tek in a constricting hold. Cinderblock staggered and cracked beneath the high-caliber onslaught. Dark ichor trickled from each chipping wound as he stumbled back and fell into a groaning mountain of cement.

The cannons retracted into Cyborg's closing arms. "Well, I'm okay," he said judiciously, and helped Tek up again.

Together, they watched the quivering and arcing remains of Plasmius and Overload (respectively) begin to coalesce into larger pieces. Tek's cannons whirled as she stared at the dual gatherings. "They're reconstructing," she said. "What should we do?"

Cyborg's arm split and elongated back into a plasma launcher. "Can't afford to screw around here any longer. We'll just give 'em another jolt and then be on our way," he said.

Under Tek's scrutiny, the larger pieces of either villain drifted together, forming a black bile that sparked with blue death. More of the mismatched pieces trickled into the whole as Tek moaned, "Uh, Vic?"

A new plasma charge glowed into Cyborg's launcher. "I see it," he said, and took aim at the incomplete central mass writhing lazily toward them. "Hit it now!"

Plasma and bullets ripped into the street where the electric bile had been. Cyborg and Tek were forced apart as the bile leapt between them in a stunning burst of speed. The bile landed atop an insensate Cinderblock and consumed him, seeping into his wounds and slurping over his slate skin. In seconds, the sparking muck had engulfed Cinderblock completely, and rose before the Titans with a rumbling groan.

"Oh, this is way too familiar," Tek groaned.

The muck continued to rise and expand, crackling with blue lightning, and became an immense shape the size of a modest building. Slate skin surfaced in patches from the muck, and emerged from the ends of thick tendrils as great, stony fists. A dozen eyes blinked open in the oozing pus of the creature's body, glaring red and blue down at the mecha duo.

Cyborg channeled more plasma into his launcher and prepared for another shot. "Damn, but I hate it when bad guys do that," he grumbled.

* * *

Raven ducked as the rooftop around her tore itself apart and threw her after Terra's tumbling trajectory. Clouds of brown stone peppered her bare legs as she yanked her hood over her head and concentrated. Invisible lift turned her fall into flight and carried her amidst a storm of crumbled masonry, over the edge of the building and down toward the distant street. 

Terra, with her head start, fell several stories below Raven, glaring up at the sorceress. Her mask flashed golden as the side of the building began erupting in successive blasts of broken brick that sprayed over Raven's protective spells. Raven's eyes lit with arcane retribution, and her invisible force shattered each window Terra fell past. Razor shards bombarded Terra's armor, confusing her in lieu of cutting her.

The women fell alongside the shredding building to the empty street. Bare sidewalk came to life and lifted, cradling Terra's fall into a safe landing seconds before Raven touched down a short distance away. The liquid sidewalk lowered Terra back to ground level with dramatic deliberation, giving both combatants ample time to reestablish their staredown.

"Reminisce, huh?" said Terra, stepping out into the street. "Okay."

Raven followed her into the street. The torrent of magic pounding in Raven's skull had lessened considerably, but there were still plenty of tricks left from which to choose. She plucked one and channeled it into her hands, sparking black fire in her palms. Without preamble, she pointed her cupped embers at Terra and willed them into columns of obsidian flame.

Pavement sat up at Terra's whim and took the brunt of Raven's magic fire, leaving Terra unharmed and haughty. "I bamboozled your other pals pretty easily," she called from behind her barricade. "But you never completely trusted me. You never really liked me. Why was that?"

Sweating in the heat of her magic, Raven struggled to maintain the fire that ate through Terra's barricade. "I know a rotten egg when I see one," she snapped.

Terra kicked her barricade, breaking it from the street and sending it flying. The block of bad road careened at Raven, who dove to one side to avoid the crushing blow. "Nah. You would have done something if you'd suspected me," Terra told the grounded Raven. Then she smiled, and gushed, "You know what I think? I think you were jealous."

Prone, Raven made a gesture that brought opposing sections of street to flip up and sandwich Terra with a deafening clap and a spray of blacktop. Dust plumed from the seam as the sections met, ruffling Raven's hood. She stood at once, never for a second believing that she'd done anything but buy a second to catch her breath. "Making jokes to distract me is Beast Boy's thing. And I don't laugh."

The vertical street sandwich flew apart, revealing a divot on the inside of each half in which Terra had cocooned herself. Her black and brown armor remained pristine in the wake of her exit. "Punch lines never do," she said. The ground tremored as the street sections crushed rows of parked cars and crumbled to rest.

Hot rage poured into Raven's next spell, a wave of intense cold that made her breath steam on its way to Terra. Frost glistened in the wave's wake, creating an icy carpet that led right to Terra's feet. At the last second, Terra lifted her hand, calling up a mound of earth that swallowed her whole. The intense cold washed over Terra's shell and froze the black pavement blue. Then the shell shattered outward, unveiling Terra's charge at the frustrated spell slinger.

"Those twerps respected you," Terra said, and called forth a quake that threw Raven off her feet. "They're even a little afraid of you. But they _liked_ me. They all liked me better than you, and I'm the one trying to kill them."

Raven lashed out with a tendril of soul-self. The black bullwhip snapped beneath Terra's jump and through a street lamp instead. The innocent lamp went dark as its pole separated in a neat cut and toppled, shattering its light against the pavement. Before Raven could swing her whip again, the earth beneath her reached up in a pseudopod that punched her temple, impacting on the buzz of her protective spells. Stars lit Raven's eyes as she rolled with the spillover of the blow, landing at Terra's feet.

Dirt streamed from the cracks in the street and engulfed Terra's gauntlet in a tremendous fist, which she poised over Raven's head. "Even Gar," said Terra. "I remember how hard he used to try to get you out of that smelly room. But that stopped pretty quick after I came along."

The brown fist crashed down, striking Raven's protective spells just above her nose. Arcane light flickered against the impact as their powers struggled against one another. Beads of sweat trickled into Raven's eyes. "And why...would I care...about that?" grunted Raven.

"Because even though we both hate them, it kills you that they like me better," said Terra.

The earthen fist melted, pouring onto Raven's face. Intended to stop blunt trauma, the armor's spells didn't recognize a handful of dirt as a threat, and did nothing to stop it. Raven gasped as the wet earth slapped her face. The startled breath only aided Terra as she willed the mud into Raven's mouth and nose. Raven's cry became garbled in mud. She arched against the ground, clawing at her throat, gagging on mud that crawled down and spread inside of her with inexorable force. Her concentration shattered in the blind, animal panic of suffocation. Writhing, wide-eyed, Raven lay helpless at Terra's feet.

"We're done reminiscing," Terra said. Her eyes flashed amber. "Choke and die, you frigid bitch."

* * *

The last barrier crumbled beneath Robin's fist, leading him through a gap in the six-inch ceiling of titanium down into a pitch black expanse. Flotsam from the underground barrier, and from the abandoned tenement he had smashed through to reach it, rained beneath him as Robin descended into absolute dark. His eyes and fists burned red, casting hell's light upon a sea of hanging chains shored by stagnant gears. 

Down he flew, through the endless chains, until at last his boots crushed a cold cement floor. Scowling, he touched a control on his monogrammed belt. His mask responded with a subtle shifting of technology that formed infrared lenses, recreating the expansive room in cool, metallic shades of blue. A single shape teased Robin from beyond the edge of the chain thicket. He strode through, heedless of the cold metal parting on his chest. The room remained ominously silent, save for the steady echoing of Robin's boots on the concrete.

"I can't decide if you're crazy or stupid, Slade," Robin called. He breached the thicket with deliberate steps. A throne took form from the obscured shape he had sought, and guided him to the center of the expansive room. Lingering heat clung to the chair in traces of red against the cool blues of his thermographic vision.

Reaching the throne, Robin stepped cautiously onto its platform. Dull electrical heat throbbed within the consoles at either side of the stark throne. "You can't think that America is just going to let you keep one of its cities just because your little robot terrorists are here. They'll burn you down and then snuff you out. Assuming you keep hiding from me like the pathetic little wretch you are," called Robin.

One of the console screens lit with an image of Slade's helmet. Robin disengaged his infrared lenses to glare back at the screen as Slade spoke. "_You really do think small, don't you, Robin."_ After a thoughtful pause, Slade's eye narrowed, and he purred, "_Or do we know each other well enough for me to call you 'Tim?'_"

The revelation of his name came as no surprise, considering Terra's defection. Robin had given his first name to the team as a calculated risk. But then his gut clenched with terrified fury at Slade's next words:

"_Or would you prefer 'Mister Drake?' That sounds so formal, doesn't it? I doubt that Batman...excuse me, 'Bruce,' ever called you that. Or Dick. Alfred. Helena. Barbara. Poor, sweet Barbara, she's had such a terrible time since her accident last spring. You really should call her. I imagine she misses you._"

"You won't ever get near them, Slade," Robin growled, choking with rage. "I will kill you before—"

Slade's _tsk_ing interrupted the threat. "_Really, Timothy. Such talk is very unbecoming of a Teen Titan._"

Spinning, Robin searched for a sign, any sign, of the villain. "**Show yourself!**" he bellowed.

A single hydraulic hiss was all the warning Robin received before the platform beneath him jerked upward, carrying him into the air on a thick, pneumatic stalk. Robin fell to one knee under the sudden acceleration. He looked up on instinct, and spied a dark circle the equal of the platform rushing down at him from the pitch. Reacting, he threw his hands up and caught the opposing plate.

Overwhelming pressure filled his palms as he rose shakily against the plate. The pressure from the platform made his legs quake with effort. It took everything he had to keep the two surfaces from meeting and crushing him. Pneumatic whining screamed from behind the platform and the featureless plate as both did their best to smear Robin.

The darkness fled with an industrial snap, spilling illumination into the cavernous space. Through his gritted efforts, Robin saw a second level revealed in the new light, a narrow catwalk that ran the perimeter of the space and its chain thicket. His eyes fell hard upon the walkway's lone occupant, who leaned against its railing in a mockingly casual manner.

"As you wish," said Slade.

**To Be Continued**


	34. Breakdown

_All-Purpose Disclaimer_

**Teen Titans** is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Cartoon Network Inc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit and purely for entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, not to be reproduced without prior consent. Additional information used in creating **Teen Titans: Avatar** courtesy of Titans Tower Online.

* * *

"Everything you see now is your own doing." 

Robin trembled as every ounce of superhuman strength he possessed went into keeping his arms and legs a healthy distance apart. He stood suspended in the air on the same platform upon which Slade's command throne sat. The platform had risen on an enormous pneumatic stalk. A second plate of ceiling had descended on a similar stalk, sandwiching Robin and the throne.

Try as he might, Robin could not overpower the plates. He was forced to stand and quiver with effort as his hated enemy, the enigmatic Slade, watched his slow demise from a catwalk hugging the far wall. Slade leaned against the railing of the catwalk casually. Here in his lair, a thicket of chains strung from the ceiling that disappeared into the floor, Slade was in control.

The villain's split-colored mask tilted at Robin's resistance. Perhaps he thought Robin would be dead in an instant. In that case, Robin was too happy to disappoint. But listening to Slade drone on made the last, sarcastic piece of defiance in Robin consider giving in: death had to be better than listening to another of Slade's speeches.

Slade aimed his gauntlet at the wall above him. Five stadium-sized screens lit in the blank wall with images of Jump City that chilled Robin's blood.

On one screen, Slade's two-toned, shadowy soldiers marched through the streets of the city—Slade's city, now—with no signs of slowing. The citizenry of Jump City was nowhere to be found; they cowered in their homes, terrified to face this faceless threat.

The second screen depicted a police precinct. There, six familiar teenagers fought alongside the grizzled police lieutenant Smith and his Special Crimes Unit. Low on ammo or out of their element, the endless numbers of the drones was slowly overrunning the precinct's defenders.

On the third screen, a figure dressed as Slade crouched over a dark shape, drawing earth up from around her to pour into the shape. Behind the pair, the business building, which bore the radio tower Slade had hijacked for his robots' control signal, stood relatively intact. Robin recognized the silvery glint wrought into the dark shape, and felt his stomach plummet. Raven had failed in her mission, and now she was dying.

Two metallic figures danced in the fourth screen. They poured red, glowing rounds into an enormous figure of purple bile, whose stone scales reflected their efforts. The creature whipped long tendrils of slime and lightning at the metallic pair, forcing them apart.

But the fifth screen…

"Starfire," Robin whispered. He watched the sprite of silver and lilac dance through the air, hurling bolts of emerald into wave after wave of drones. Behemoths lashed out at her with billowing columns of sonic. She spun and struck at incredible speed. But the foes around her kept coming, kept clawing, kept shooting, with no regard for how many she destroyed. They would win in the end, if only through number and persistence.

"You had only to submit to my reign, Timothy," Slade announced to the transfixed Titan. "I would have taken my fill and left your precious city relatively intact. I only asked that you acknowledge my superiority. That you had been beaten. But time and again, you prove the need for your elimination. And now your friends must suffer the same fate. Once more, your defiance becomes their death."

The plates closed another inch. Robin dipped his head. Sweat beaded at his brow, dripping down his chin and onto the smooth black material of his armored uniform. The stylized avian silhouette on his chest stretched with effort. "I've heard this all before, Slade," Robin grunted. "What makes you think this time will be any different?"

Slade pressed another control on his gauntlet. The pressure squeezing Robin increased dramatically, forcing him to dip another three inches. He cried out, half-crouched against the unyielding plates. His muscles screamed.

"And to think," Slade said with a shake of his head, "I once considered you as a worthy successor."

"I swear, Slade," Robin growled, "I'm going to make you pay for this."

A soft chuckle echoed through the lair, audible still over the whine of the stalks that drove the plates ever toward crushing Robin. Slade draped himself over the catwalk rail and watched the fruits of his planning. "You've made such promises before, Timothy," he said mockingly. "What makes you think this time will be any different?"

Robin grit his teeth and strained, searching for an answer in the anger and desperation flooding his thoughts.

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_By Cyberwraith9_

* * *

_Breakdown_

Raven wanted to kiss a boy.

Her mortal heritage offered Raven the benefit of a humanoid appearance, something that other demons had to play tricks or make deals to get. Taking after her mother, and not her absentee anger-issues father, meant she could walk down the street without evoking terror in all of the mundane people she wished she could be like. But as she'd discovered upon entering teenagerdom, a human form came with human hormones, which demanded human needs that took inhuman concentration to deny. Much of her constant meditation was spent curbing her baser desires for companionship.

Harder still was dealing with the absence and bombardment of emotion. Every feeling Raven had, every feeling she did not keep wrapped in the tightest of chokeholds, was subject to the baleful whims of her extradimensional father. He could take those feelings and twist them into a rage that poisoned her tenuous soul. And when she did purge herself of emotion, when she did take from him all his opportunity to corrupt her, he twisted the emotion she empathed in those around her.

Oh, Raven had friends. Their camaraderie and support gave her the strength to continue her fight against the inevitability of her descent. Because of their friendship, she could weather the worst of her forced isolation. But through the confusion and emptiness, one thing remained painfully evident to Raven:

Oh, God, she wanted to kiss a boy.

As Raven lay on the street, with animate earth pooling into her lungs, she questioned her mind's final thought. Kissing boys? Ws that really the best her sharply honed mind could do. She stared up into the two-toned face of the former Titan forcibly feeding asphalt down her throat, and was utterly disappointed in herself.

Her mind flashed back to Dominic, the peaceful presence she'd encountered in the bookstore. She recalled his smile and wondered how it would feel pressed against hers.

So maybe it was stupid. But it didn't feel that way.

…

Stupid humanity.

* * *

Terra grinned in her helmet as she watched Raven's wide eyes glaze. She felt a thready pulse through the dirt trail snaking down the Titan's throat. The faint beating of Raven's heart grew fainter still, making Terra shiver gleefully. The Titan's struggles weakened, leaving only a clammy grip resting gently on the liquid dirt. 

Terra had pictured this moment dozens of times throughout her undercover days. Prefabricated one-liners welled in her lips, but she remained silent. Some moments were too good for words.

But a voice from behind disagreed, and piped up, "What time is it when an elephant sits on your girlfriend?"

Turning, Terra caught sight of a green shape ballooning outward behind her. The shape became a towering impossibility that dropped Terra's jaw. An elephant decked in full plate armor shadowed her, glaring down at her from around its tusks. His trunk whipped around Terra's waist and yanked her, screaming, from Raven. Terra flew helplessly from his trunk and crashed through the side of a passenger van as the armored elephant deflated into an armored boy.

Raven felt strong hands shove her armor below her breastbone. She coughed up a pie's worth of mud as her eyes snapped open to look into cold green concern. She managed to gargle, "Beast Boy," before her stuttering gasp made her gag. Beast Boy heaved her onto her side as she heaved out her insides. Yellowed dirt pooled under her cheek as she spasmed her airway clean. A gloved hand pulled the hair from her face until she only coughed up the stale air in her lungs.

"Easy," Beast Boy said, helping her sit up. "You've been breathing the wrong stuff."

Wracked with coughing, Raven tried to reassure Beast Boy that she was capable of taking care of herself. A stuttered rendition of his name made it between coughs before she gave up and leaned begrudgingly into his arm. Her chest throbbed from the inside out. Her throat felt raw and hot against her short, semi-desperate gasps.

A stirring in the passenger van across the street stole Beast Boy's notice. "Sit tight," he said, giving her shoulder a pat. "I gotta go have a talk with Tara."

"You shouldn't…" Raven gagged and cringed. The effort to speak tore her throat. "You shouldn't have to…"

Sadness spread in a smile on Beast Boy's lips. "Yeah," he murmured. Then, with another reassuring pat on her back, he rose and began walking across the street.

Beast Boy made it halfway to the van when the earth reached up and tore its puckered side open. Terra lay among the van's jumbled innards, glaring balefully from behind the split color of her mask. She slid through the torn side and strode forward with the confidence of a girl who had not just been tossed by an elephant. "Hello, Gar," she greeted him plainly. "The armor looks good on you. Paw prints are a little on-the-nose, but it works."

Glancing down at the purple prints on his chest plates, Beast Boy shrugged. "Thanks," he said, looking up. "Wish I could say the same. So why didn't you squish me while I was conked out?"

"I wanted to talk to you," Terra said. They stopped several strides apart, shoulders squared and tensed, fists curled, eyes hard and locked. "I wanted to convince you that I'm not your enemy."

His fingers grazed the purpling bruise at his hairline. "You have a funny way of showing it," he muttered.

"I don't want to hurt you," insisted Terra. "Gar, don't make me…"

Uncharacteristic cold steeped Beast Boy's words. "What makes you think you could?" he asked.

The ground trembled as Terra lifted her fists. Waves rolled through the street, cracking its blacktop. Car alarms howled up and down the block. Buildings shook, vomiting their windows in a hail of shredded glass. Fire hydrants broke and erupted with impromptu fountains. "I was always stronger than you, Gar," Terra told him. "And this suit only makes me stronger. You can't beat me."

Beast Boy kept his footing with effortless grace. His glimmering, cat-like eyes never wavered from Terra.

* * *

A glowing, oozing, stony foot swung up into Cyborg's cross block. Even with his new prosthetics, he couldn't escape the laws of physics; the combined foot of Cinderblock, Plasmus, and overload was easily as big as a Volkswagen Jetta, and possessed more than enough momentum to launch Cyborg through the air. He flew forty yards and three stories high, and sunk with hardware-rattling force into the brickwork of an old building. 

The triple threat monster screeched in triumph. Yellow eyes sunk into its black, slimy skin swiveled collectively to rest on the remaining Titan across the street. Quakes rattled the world with each of its steps as it lumbered toward Tek. Another screech bit the air and sent the tinny Titan's heart into her throat.

"Okay, alley girl," she said to herself in a shaky tone, backing away from the Triple Threat's advance. "You've got this. You've done the combo-monster thing before."

The cannons strapped to her arms and shoulders revolved into blurred columns, each one lighting at its end with the metallic bark of bullets being thrown with blinding speed. Tek lost her own scream in the noise of her cannons as she watched her attack fail utterly to slow Triple Threat's advance. Those bullets that did hit would glance off the creature's stone skin plates, or sink into its viscous pitch, or evaporate in the blue energy that arced across its skin. Tek's panicked breath wheezed in and out her grille as the bark of her guns fell silent one cannon at a time, until Triple Threat stood over her, unafraid of the empty cannons spinning and clicking at him.

Cyborg watched helplessly from his crater in the building as Triple Threat reached down and plucked Tek from the ground. She screamed in its oozing grasp, arms pinned to her sides, armor hissing beneath the chemical hunger of the creature's slime. Knowing he had to save her, Cyborg braced himself for the coming fall, and willed commands to his new body.

The oversized devices layered on Cyborg's shoulders jettisoned apart as they launched a wave of tiny missiles, each one no bigger than his little finger. Flying fast, the missiles converged on Triple Threat's arm just above the fist that clutched Tek on her way to the creature's mouth. Fire and force blossomed in a hundred-part harmony to consume the creature's arm. Triple Threat yowled and stumbled back, waving its empty stump, as Tek and its fist struck the ground and splattered into a mound of stony slime.

The missile launch jarred Cyborg from the wall. He fell, and managed to get a single leg beneath him before he caught up with the street. It did no good, for his leg pierced the abused pavement, staking it while the rest of him slammed face-first onto the ground. Everything went dark.

Moments or years later, Cyborg pulled his plated face from the pavement. His vision swam together to find Triple Threat reaching with its remaining hand toward its dismembered fist. Cyborg's arm split into a pronged plasma launcher as he extracted himself from his second crater. The cannon belched a ball of plasma the size of his head, kicking him back a step. Glowing golden brilliance struck Triple Threat in the shoulder and vaporized a spherical chunk of the creature in a flash. Triple Threat screamed, teetered, and toppled.

Cyborg loped to the mound of slime left by Triple Threat's fist. He plunged a hand into the mire, ignorant of the warning messages in his vision as acidic chemicals burned away his tactile sensors. Something clanked into his grasp. He yanked and stepped back, pulling Tek from the slime. Her armor, stripped and warped by the acid, clattered on the blacktop while she gasped.

"I can't…I can't…I can't…" Tek repeated the phrase over and over, clutching her helmet as she curled into a ball. Her repetitions quickened at Cyborg's touch, which she shrank from in a fit of primal fear. "No…No! I can't…"

"Tek, calm down—" Cyborg began, but stopped at a long, inhuman hiss that turned him from the terrified armor. Triple Threat was back on its feet and glaring down at them. The missing parts of its anatomy finished regenerating, leaving no evidence that they'd hurt it at all. "Aw, hell," muttered Cyborg.

He lifted his launcher. Too slow. Triple Threat's hand engulfed his arm and lifted him bodily. Stinking muck clogged the cannon, making any liberating blasts impossible. Cyborg had no time to brace himself for the backhand that rattled his entire body. He swung like a windsock, dangling from Triple Threat's fist as its other hand slapped him. Each blow struck with dynamite force. By the third blow, he felt his consciousness leaking out of his ears.

"No!" he heard Tek whimper between the gonging blows. "No…no…nononononononononONONONONONONONOOOOOOOOOO!" Her whimper became a howl became a snarl. Somewhere deep in Cyborg's brain, his memory clicked, and he realized that they now had two problems.

A tinny roar ripped from Tek's grille. She pounced upon Triple Threat's bulbous torso and sank her feet into its viscous skin. Stuck, she began to claw Triple Threat, tearing the great stone fragments in its body free with swipes of her cannons. Blue lightning arced from the creature's gushing wounds into her armor. The cannons, ill-suited for such physical stress, bent and snapped.

Cyborg fell limp from Triple Threat's grasp and clattered to the ground. He watched Triple Threat scrape the frenzied armor from its chest and hurl her away. Tek landed in a crouch and leapt back in one smooth motion. She tore the cannons from her shoulders in mid-flight and used them as clubs. Triple Threat's body splashed beneath Tek's shape-rending blows. Both Tek and her prey howled as she beat the creature apart. She struck without mercy or pause, gouging its eyes and shattering its chitinous stone scales.

Given her craze, Cyborg doubted that she would stop even after she demolished what was left of Triple Threat. He also doubted he could calm her down once she started tearing him apart. His arm became a launcher once more as he drew a bead on the brawling pair. "Reroute all available power to the plasma launcher," he instructed his systems. "Direct all energy into a single charge and prepare to fire."

OPERATION NOT RECOMMENDED. MOTOR AND TACTICAL FUNCTIONS WILL BE REDUCED BY 100 PERCENT. RECOMMEND—

"Override." The single word set off a massive fusion reaction in the launcher, pouring liquid fire down the tines of its barrel. Cyborg could feel the cannon's magnetic fields straining to contain the charge. Strength ebbed from every extremity as he hurried to aim his shot at the fervor that was Tek's fight with Triple Threat. "Hope this doesn't hurt too much, Kid," he muttered.

The plasma launcher flew apart as its oversized charge poured forth. Cyborg staggered as the blowback consumed his entire arm, and he watched his impeccable aim at work. Plasma poured into Triple Threat's chest just as Tek had leapt up for a renewed mauling.

An instant of alarming calm followed the impact. Tek, Cyborg, and Triple Threat all stared at the plasma through crawling time as the fire slithered into the creature's sickening skin. Then time resumed as normal, and Triple Threat became no threat at all.

Viscous pitch flew in all directions from an expanding sphere of fire. Thunder roared with the lightning that dissipated from the departing remnants of Triple Threat. Tek's limps fluttered, rag-dolled, as she hurtled from the explosion wearing a sizable portion of Triple Threat's face. Smoke trailed after her, following her into the bottom floor of a business building, where she disappeared into the glass atrium.

Cyborg stood in the stinking acidic rain with a funny smile beneath his faceplate. "Stone, one. Two birds, zero," he crowed.

He pumped his fist in victory. Or rather, he tried. His remaining arm fell to his side and refused all impulses to the contrary. His kneecaps clapped on the street as his legs failed him. The power he needed to move simply wasn't there.

"Oh," he said, as he fell forward onto the pavement. Blacktop filled his fuzzing vision. "Okay. This is awkward."

* * *

"You lied to me!" screamed Terra. 

The street rumbled apart, breaking into rough cubes that dwarfed the cars tumbling from their tops. Cubic tons of the street circled overhead like carrion birds, casting hard-edged shadows that swept over the tattered landscape. Terra stood upon one of the blocks, her arms raised as she conducted the airborne earth. Darkness spilled all around as the sidewalks holding street lamps tore free of the earth.

Terra's eyes flashed down upon the lone figure left at the edge of the torn street. "You said you loved me," she said. "You were my first. But it was never true. You were just using me, like the rest of them."

Stone rattled up around Beast Boy. His armor pinged against a rain of pebbles from the bottoms of the blocks. He held his place, stoic and hard against the threat of being crushed by any one of the house-sized blocks. "Yeah," he said. "I'm the liar here."

"Slade told me you Titans were all like that," Terra shot. "I didn't want to believe him about you, but he was right. All you did was use me. You all did."

Shadow swallowed Beast Boy beneath the tumulus crash of a street block. The city trembled as Terra drove the cube hard into the ground and twisted it, grinding everything beneath the block into rubble. Terra sneered at the block, beneath which a paste of her ex-boyfriend dripped. Then a small, white shape fluttering toward another block caught her amber eye. A green sparrow trilled and struggled with the weight of his tiny armor, finally fluttering to rest atop a block and growing into a crouched Beast Boy. Enraged, Terra hurled the block he was on into the side of a building.

"I wasn't good enough for any of you until I could control this," Terra snarled. Her block dove into the glass façade of a business complex, tearing its towering reflection of the fight into a million dancing shards. The building shrieked with the sound of grinding glass. As the block crumbled into the building, she shouted, "Well, Slade wanted me! And he made me good enough for the Titans so I could put you in your places."

The last of the glass fell to ground, leaving in its wake a silence that set Terra on edge. She pulled twin spikes from the cube beneath her boots and waited. Her patience paid off a moment later, and she hurled a wave of spikes at a chain mail kangaroo that bounded from the shattered building. The stone spikes speared the dust trailing his tail, and the kangaroo ricocheted between the whirling blocks. Terra's aim proved maddeningly close, but in the end, Beast Boy landed before her in human shape and stood tall and unmoving, staring her down through the gaps in her mask.

Terra pulled fists of rock over her hands and boots of rock onto her feet with a single thought. The block they stood upon cracked with the strain as Terra leapt at Beast Boy, fossilized fists swinging to cleave his head off his shoulders.

"You never loved me!" she screamed, landing on the next block a breath behind Beast Boy. "You used me! I hate you! You used me, just like them!"

Her stone fist shattered against the armored stomach of a gorilla. Terra clutched her throbbing actual hand and looked up into his empty glare and flaring nostrils. The gorilla shrank back into Beast Boy, startling her back. She tripped over her own feet and fell onto the block.

"I love you," Beast Boy said.

Beast Boy's gauntlet crossed Terra's mask. The matte black half of her visor caved in, blinding her to the boot that buried its steel toe in her stomach. Doubled over, she heaved breath in greedily, helpless to react until she filled her chest.

He grasped the sides of her helmet and hauled it to eye level. "Robin figured out that you couldn't control your powers. I never told him diddily."

The gorilla in him returned with a seamless shift, still clutching her head. He brought their foreheads together with a resounding clang that bent her mask further, blinding her completely. She staggered back, and then wrapped around the tail of a velociraptor that swept her off the block. It was all she could do to call another floating block beneath her. She struck the block hard, bouncing on impact.

As she lay prone, something heavy landed next to her. A vicious kick dissipated against her black suit, turning what would have been massive internal trauma into cracked ribs. "Everyone loves you, Tara. You're just too scared to see it," she heard Beast Boy say calmly. "You don't believe anybody can love anybody without wanting something back. You couldn't believe we could love you if we knew you. You didn't think we could give all of this for free. So you ran away from us and you found Slade, who gave you exactly that kind of selfish love."

"I'll kill you!" she screamed blindly, and thrust a stream of stone at the voice.

Beast Boy sidestepped the lethal stone shaft. He looked down at the scrambling girl through narrow, inhuman eyes, and spoke in a cold tone. "And when you came back, you were sure that our love was the lie. It had to be, or else that screwed up mentor/daddy complex you've got with Slade would be the lie. And you can't handle that."

Terra ripped her helmet off. A blonde banner of war billowed behind her hateful glare. "Shut up!" she screamed.

The block they stood upon geomorphed into tremendous hands that closed around Beast Boy. He strained his noodle arms uselessly, and then gasped one last time. With a rumble, the giant hands constricted around Beast Boy, turning his green face purple, scraping and bending his armor, stressing his slender frame to the point of agony.

Terra stood atop her stone hands, looking down. Tears streamed from her hateful eyes as she bent into his purpling face and sprayed him with laughter. "This is what you deserve, you bastard!" she told him.

Rage welled in Beast Boy's chest. He used the last of his breath to utter, "I love you."

The stone hands exploded with a shape too grand to contain. Bits of dead pavement fell around Terra as she plummeted onto a new block pulled from the ground. As soon as she landed, she glared back up at whatever animal Beast Boy had become. Then she turned ghastly pale.

Beast Boy's techno-impossible armor strained across a tremendous, chitinous chest of black scales. He loomed above her, a reptilian nightmare of fantasy, and spread black bat-like wings across the width of the street. An angular head dipped on his long, flexible neck, splitting with jaws filled with sword-like teeth. Flames glowed at the back of his throat as he blew Terra down with a roar she felt rather than heard.

Terra screamed as the Beast Boy dragon roared again. She yanked her stone block up around her in a bubble to shield herself from the fire that spilled from the emerald dragon's maw. Flames poured around the edge of her bubble, which began to crack under the intense heat. Terra sweated and knelt, pulling more and more of the block she floated upon to shore up her crumbling defense. Smoldering char nipped at the end of her hair. Enamel peeled from her armor, leaving it a dull and barren gray.

So intent was Terra on keeping her barrier against the flames that she did not see the dragon's spiked tail sweeping at her. The tail smashed through her block, throwing her into a spray of boulders. Terra fell with a long scream to the rough-hewn ground, calling reflexively on her gifts to keep the airborne rockslide from crushing her as it fell into a heaping crypt around her.

Dusty, crushing darkness collapsed over Terra. The air rushed from her lungs as she grinded and rumbled under her own avalanche. She felt the delicate control of her suit snap away as it broke, like being gagged and deafened after only hours of sight. Panicked, breathless, she threw her power in all directions, blasting away her rock crypt. Then she lay in a crater, heaving, exhausted.

Then she screamed and recoiled at a tremendous claw descending upon her. Knees to her chest, arms over her face, she felt her world quake as the claw crashed into the ground. One last draconic bellow tore through the air. Then, silence.

Terra cracked a single eye, glancing around. She lay amidst five deep scars punched around the crater. The sky above her was empty. Rocks were strewn between the dropped and sunken fleet of her blocks. And standing before her, an almost-human Beast Boy glared with wholly inhuman eyes.

"I love you," he told her. "I never wanted anything but love from you. Now I want you to go, and I never, ever want to see you again." His brow dropped, hooding his eyes in shadow. His scowl glimmered with animal hate. Then he turned on his heel and began a long, deliberate trek back to the transmitter's building.

"Why…" Terra stared after him, still sprawled on the ground. "W-why couldn't you just love me like this?" she whimpered.

Beast Boy didn't slow his gait. "Because you're eight different flavors of screwed up, Sladerina. Don't ever come back."

As he reached the foot of the building, Beast Boy felt a new tremor underfoot an instant before the sidewalk broke into rough tentacles around him. He whipped around, fists clenched, and glared back at Terra. She stood on a skewed pedestal of understreet. Kinesis whipped through her hair and burned in her eyes as she leveled her fingers at him. "No!" she screamed. "I won't let—"

She stopped short. So did her sidewalk tentacles. Beast Boy uncringed to see Terra clutching at her throat. Several inches of empty air separated her soles from her pedestal. Looking past Terra, Beast Boy spied a glimmer of arcane light held within the folds of a shadowed hood. Raven leaned on a blue lump that used to be a mailbox as she glowered at the gagging girl.

"We're done talking," she said hoarsely. "Choke and fly, you pathetic bitch."

Terra shivered in pure black soul-self. The ethereal substance flung her high above the city skyline. She faded into a mote in the clouds, her scream dwindling into a squeak in the space of a breath.

Beast Boy watched Terra disappear into the sunrise with a fading sense of bitterness amidst the other thousands of emotions boiling in his chest. Then he jogged to Raven and helped her off the battered mailbox in spite of her weak protest. "Choke and fly?" he asked skeptically.

"Inside joke. You had to be there." Raven eyeballed him, careful to keep her bare skin from touching his. The walls around her mind were reinforced with trepidation and the maddening plethora of magic she had culled from the borrowed tomes. "How did you do that? I've never seen you morph like that before."

He frowned as they hobbled toward the radio building. "What're you talking about? I've been a T-Rex lots of times."

Raven returned his frown in kind. "No, you were—"

Both stopped. Dual legions of the red and black drones marched upon the pair, spilling into their slice of the city from either direction of the street. Behemoth reinforcements marched behind them with cannons raised at the ready. The hum of laser pre-fire blared in stereo, forcing Beast Boy and Raven back-to-back.

She had to lean on him harder than she would have liked, and gritted her teeth at the heartless army pouring around them. "It seems Terra had reinforcements," she said.

Beast Boy's skin buzzed, aching to cast off the shackles of his skinny human form. "Let's cancel their favorite radio show. I think we should—"

Raven cast up a hand. The lofty radio antenna rattled as creeping blackness consumed it from bottom to top. Raven's hand curled. The antenna collapsed upon itself, wailing in death with the metallic shriek and bark of breaking girders. Within seconds, all that remained of the antenna was a jagged stack of metal on the rooftop. Slade's robots felt its signal's absence at once, and jerked to a stop, quivering en masse.

Raven's legs jellied with the effort. Only Beast Boy's quick catch kept her from falling, a kindness that galled her. To save face, she returned his concern with a smug look and asked, "What was all that 'we' business?"

"Yeah, yeah," said Beast Boy. He examined Slade's frozen army while Raven reasserted her legs. "Well," he said, "what do you think the return is on recycled robots? If you can get a nickel for a pop can, I bet these guys are, like, a buck-fifty each, easy."

The robots cut short Raven's scathing retort with unified chaos. Each drone and behemoth awakened with weapons lit and empty eyes wide in simulated madness. Lasers and sonic blasts filled the air with resonant heat. Masonry, glass, plaster—the bevy of buildings rained bodily onto the street, crushing indiscriminately. Even as the robots' efforts killed them secondhand beneath the debris, their crazed, undirected attack continued.

Soul-self rippled around the Titans into a bubble that deflected the torrent of energies. Beast Boy tensed with feral fear at Raven's side. "They aren't retreating. Robin said—"

"Robin was wrong," snapped Raven. Through her bubble, past the immediate chaos, she watched similar explosions of drone weaponry blossom in distant blocks. The thought of this much destruction in every part of their city cracked even her grim demeanor. "He was dead wrong."

* * *

The live feed on Slade's stadium monitors blinked into static, obscured the moment Robin watched the destruction of the radio tower. A second later, the image was replaced with an extreme satellite view of the city. As Robin strained in the pressure of the plates, he watched the live map of Jump City begin to glow with pinpricks of red and blue. The colorful lights expanded between the larger buildings of the city into a purplish haze. 

Robin's hot blood ran cold as the muted colors danced through the city. Fire kindled atop the grand skyscrapers in the midst of the glow. The flickering points of orange amidst the reds and blues blurred in the sweat that trickled over Robin's mask. "What have you done, Slade?" he growled.

The infuriatingly smug serenity remained in Slade's voice as he watched the city's destruction. "I wash my hands of this carnage, Timothy. My invasion was a calm, calculated affair. The drones were not to offer any force whatsoever unless directly confronted by resistance. But without a command signal to control them, the drones have reverted to their default purpose." He hissed the word, half-disgusted, half-delighted: "Destruction."

The alien might in Robin's arms dulled. He locked his elbows, forcing his body to compress. Pain screamed in his joints as the plates closed another inch closer toward crushing him. Sweat dribbled down his lips, dipped the ends of his hair, and washed his vision of Slade into a hateful smear. "You…You can't!" he wheezed.

"I'm not," Slade said, opening his hands in a helpless gesture. "As I said, my invasion was to be orderly and temporary. You were the one who negated my ability to control them." His eye glimmered as he leaned over the catwalk railing, glaring at Robin in bemusement. "Did you actually believe my drones would simply desist if you took away my reins? What on Earth gave you that insipid notion?"

"I…"

"This is why you no longer interest me, Timothy. Since your acquisition of these extraordinary gifts, you've done nothing but squander them." Slade's rational tone sharpened. He gripped the railing hard, as though enraged by Robin's failure. "Worse, you let these abominations supplant your real gifts. You are devoid of strategy, of foresight. You bash your way through problems, never thinking of their consequences."

Robin drew upon Slade's speech, letting the hate it sparked in his chest flow into his limbs. "I won't let…won't let you…"

Slade drew back. He lifted his gauntlet, poising his finger above its smooth, black surface. "You showed such promise in the beginning. Now you're just one more metahuman in my way."

He tapped his gauntlet. The thicket of chains surrounding them jerked and tightened. Rusty cogs in the walls and ceiling began to turn, raining flakes of rust as they moved for the first time in years. And with the chains stretched taut, Robin felt the pressure he stood between double, and then double again. He howled as his legs gave out. His knees slammed into the plate below. The plate above bent his elbows by force, stopping only once it pressed tightly to his shoulders.

Robin had to duck his head or lose it. His arms trembled and his knees screamed. He bent little by little as the plates inched together, spurred on by the incremental crawl of each chain in the thicket.

"Witness the highest compliment I have ever paid an adversary, Timothy," said Slade. "Every chain and every gear is connected to an engine. There are legions of them throughout this complex. Their only purpose is to drive the trap you find yourself in now. A thin layer of promethium covers each plate, preventing you from simply breaking out. An entire lair, whose sole purpose is to crush you."

The plates pushed harder. For the first time in months, Robin felt fear slither up his spine. He didn't have the strength to fight the pressure forever. Eventually it would overwhelm him, and the unbreakable plates would crush him. His unnatural fortitude would make death a slow process. He would lie between the plates, feeing each rib fail one by one, cracking like gunshots before his vital organs ballooned and burst. For the first time in months, he felt mortal again. He felt afraid.

But no. Something in his chest stirred, swallowing that fear. In its place came an overwhelming rage, a fury that literally painted his vision red. He felt his sweat bubble and steam on his skin, evaporating clear of his eyes, which bore into Slade. This madman had made a fool of Robin through childish trickery. Now this waste of a man meant to crush him in a paltry machine, like a rodent in a trap. No.

"No," Robin growled. The rage in his chest spread, rushing into his arms. Creaking, the plate above halted. Then it relinquished a precious inch. Robin's scarlet glare flared at Slade. "No," he said again, louder.

One by one, the trembling chains in Slade's thicket broke and fell. They clattered uselessly to the floor, whipping into one another. Squealing gears sprayed sparks and smoke from the walls. The lair rumbled as Robin pushed back against its collective efforts.

Slade grasped the railing to steady himself. "Don't fight this, Robin," he said. He had to shout to be heard over the snap-clatter of the chains and the whine of the gears. "I've studied you. I know what you're capable of. Whatever temporary front you muster will only delay the inevitable."

Robin growled and pushed. And pushed. And pushed. Each word Slade spoke stoked the fire in his chest, pouring more strength into his limbs. He rose, half-crouched, trembling between the opposing plates. The chains driving Slade's trap broke in waves, clear-cutting the lair. Rusted cogs tore free from the ceiling and cracked the floor. Long breaches leapt across the ceiling in their place, revealing the complex of machinery Robin fought against. Even as Robin's strength grew, the pressure in the plates waned.

"No." Slade pulled an electro-disc from his belt and cupped it in the curve of his arm. He had worked too hard. He would not lose now. "No, Timothy!"

The electro-disc spun through the air as Robin's rage found its apogee. Roaring, he released the last leash on his anger, and let it run rampant into his vision. The lenses of his mask vaporized to make way for two beams of deep crimson light. His glare found the disc in flight and bisected it, destroying it in a flash of red lightning.

Robin's roar shook the lair. He straightened. The hydraulic stalks driving the plates crinkled. Chains yet unbroken fell limp as the engines pulling them died, their final breath spilling smoke throughout the lair.

Freed, Robin flexed his arms, and then ripped away the remainder of his mask. His glare pierced the haze to find Slade stumbling on his bucking catwalk.

Smoggy air wracked Slade's chest and stung his eye. He fell back against the wall in the quake's decline and pawed at his belt for a new weapon. His fingers tugged at the electro-lariat coiled at his back when he heard a new screech of torn metal. Then the curtain of smoke before him parted, and his throne tumbled at him with deadly speed.

Slade leapt and rolled, and felt the catwalk cry as the throne plowed through it behind him. His knees struck hard on his landing. He fell upon his hands and coughed. His lariat skittered away from him, falling over the edge into the scattered chains below.

Something grabbed his armor harness from behind and yanked the floor out from beneath him. Slade hung limp and spun to face Robin's unmasked face. Red death roiled in Robin's eyes. The teen's grip crushed through Slade's harness like putty. "Little man," uttered Robin, "You really piss me off."

Robin's backhand struck Slade like a sledgehammer. Slade spun over the rail of the catwalk and fell. His scream lost its wind at the burning blow of a bird bolt that bent his back and drove him hard into the floor. Chipping stone splashed up around him. He felt something in his chest give way with a gunshot crack. Sticky heat pooled against his lips inside his mask.

That steel grip returned to his harness and rolled him. Robin loomed over him, black and blurred by the smoke. "Get up, Slade," he said.

Slade tried to comply, but the slightest twitch set his chest ablaze. So Robin launched him with a kick that crushed his stomach. Prickling cold spread through Slade's body as he bounced across the floor. He felt bolts of fire hammer him, knocking him farther, consuming his armor in flashes of intense heat. He tried to run, but could not. He tried to protect himself, but there was nothing left.

Robin caught up to Slade's skittering with a burst of flight. He pulled Slade from the floor and swung him overhead, returning him to the floor hard. "Tricks and lies won't save you now, Slade. You've got nothing left," he snarled. Robin reached down and grasped Slade's mask, bending its steel in his palm. "Nothing but this."

One swift tug tore the mask. The rest of Slade's helmet fell away as his head jerked forward. Then he fell back, gasping, blood pooling in his lips. Robin stood for a moment with the mask and stared down into the face of his would-be killer.

A single, dark eye stared back, wrapped in pale skin that was just starting to wrinkle, like fresh paper recently uncrumpled. A black patch rested opposite Slade's eye, held in place by a black band that disappeared into the neat, trim crop of snowy hair that framed his head. Slade's lips parted for a ragged cough. Blood stained his teeth.

Robin chuckled. His glowing eyes crinkled in a smile. He threw back his head and laughed. "That is rich," he said. "That is…it's just so sad. It's hilarious."

"Laugh while you may, Timothy," coughed Slade. Without the mask, his voice sounded weak and soft. "In time, you'll pay for this. I'll make you pay."

The laughter in Robin's throat died. "What makes you think you'll be around to make me pay for anything?"

"Bruises heal. Bones mend. But this hurt you have given me…revealing me in this manner…" Slade coughed again, as though his lungs were squirming up his throat. A dark look in his eye matched Robin's red glare. "I will return this hurt a thousand fold. I will live to have my revenge."

Rage welled into Robin's hand, compacting into a bolt of deep crimson. His glove burned away trying to contain the bolt. Wisps of armor rose from his trembling fingers as he brought them to Slade's face. "This is a long time coming, Slade," he uttered.

"No."

The word turned Robin to a lilac ghost hovering in the smoke. The ghost floated forward, growing clearer as it grew closer. "Starfire?" His voice hardened. "You shouldn't be here."

Starfire landed at arms' length. She appeared serene, with sadness in her gaze that made Robin hesitate. "Nor should you be here," she stated. "Grave turmoil has seized the city. We are in need of your assistance. I followed your communicator signal when you did not respond." When his bolt did not waver from Slade's face, she took a small step forward. "Robin—"

"Just get out of here, Starfire!" he bellowed, startling her back. His glare flashed back to Slade. His bolt grew hotter, vaporizing his suit's sleeve to his wrist. Slade's beard began to smolder away, leaving his skin raw red. "I have to do this," said Robin.

Starfire stepped forward again. "You cannot," she told him. "You once told me that a Titan must not kill. I now remind you of this."

Trembling, Robin grasped his wrist to steady the bolt. "This is Slade, Kory! Do you have any idea what he's done? The things he did to me—"

"—make him a horrible person," said Starfire. "But they could not lessen you, because you are stronger than he is. You are better." Another step brought her to his side. She gently rested her hand on his shoulder, speaking in a soft tone. "You are my Robin. And my Robin could never kill."

The scarlet faded from Robin's eyes, leaving them tired and blue. He turned. Apology surfaced on his dark features.

Then Slade gave a small laugh.

At once, the rage blossomed in Robin's glare, masking him behind twin stars of red. "No! This is the only way!" he snapped.

Starfire shoved his arm. Had she been a second slower, it would have been Slade's head, and not the broken carpet of chains, that exploded with bloody heat. She flinched at the flare of the bolt, but kept her grip on Robin's wrist.

Starfire stared back into Robin's shocked anger. She struggled to smooth the cracks in her voice as she told him, "I cannot allow this, Robin."

The lair spun dizzyingly. Starfire spiraled, catching herself in the air a full dozen feet away from Robin and Slade. Her jaw throbbed and her eyes spun. It took a second for her senses to return, and a second more to blink the stars out of her eyes.

Robin's fist trembled. Blood streamed from his knuckles where they had struck her. "I told you not to question me," he said. "You don't ever question me, Starfire."

He turned back to Slade, gathering another killing bolt in his palm. Before he could finish, Starfire descended into his line of fire, arms crossed beneath her chest. She stared into Robin's glare with a hard, calm look. A dark bruise blossomed on her jaw. "I will not let you do this," she told him.

The fire in his eyes became blinding. With a snarl, he lifted his hand and held the burning bolt to her face. Rage made the bolt tremble, rage for the arrogance that stood between him and his mission, the broken old man on the floor who was too dangerous to let live. Robin held that arrogance to the fire of his rage, watching, waiting for her to back down. The light from the bolt turned her eyes pure red. The hair loosed from her helmet burned away. But she did not budge. Nor did she look away.

His bolt fizzled and died. He lowered his hand, glaring hard at the sprightly hindrance. "Fine," he snapped. "I don't have time to argue. I have a city to save." His eyes narrowed as he added, "You'll be sorry for this." Looking down at Slade, he said, "I swear you'll be sorry."

"I already am," she whispered.

Robin shot into the ceiling with force enough to stir the air into a frenzy. Starfire cringed against the tempest, losing sight of him in the puckered metal overhead. She continued staring at the hole long after he had gone, until a weak laugh returned her eyes to Slade's wracked amusement.

"Robin was right," she told him. "You deserve to die."

That only made him laugh harder. Blood bubbled from his lips as he said, "I may still. But look at him. Even if you save the city and stop my robots, I've won."

His stuttered laugh haunted Starfire's flight from the lair.

* * *

Tek stepped drunkenly through the shattered face of the building and back onto the street. Scorched robot crunched underfoot as she surveyed the empty battleground. Dawn had come and gone, leaving a morning sun to begin its rounds for the day. Fearsome reds and blues erupted in the urban distance to overshadow the sunlight. 

Tek's head tilted with confusion at the light show. It wasn't until she spied Cyborg, lying face down on the street, that her hesitant steps found purpose. Even then, she moved slowly, feeling the roar of the beast that lived in her thoughts. Her head pounded with the effort of caging the beast.

"Cyborg!" Tek rolled him over and examined him through her cracked visor. His arm was missing, and his chassis was scarred, but he appeared otherwise unharmed. She heard muffled sounds coming from inside the blank faceplate attached over his head. With no notion of delicacy, Tek tore the faceplate away. "Cyborg!" she cried again.

Cyborg gritted his teeth against the painful feedback of the faceplate's removal. He sucked in a greedy breath, and then said, "Thanks, Kid. Getting stuffy in there."

She pulled him up in a desperate, clanky hug. "You're okay!" she sobbed. Then she paused. "You're not moving. You're not okay?"

"Power loss. I'm in power-save mode." His eyelid felt heavy as he drew upon the feeble remainder of his reserves. "I'll probably shut down in a minute. Stash me somewhere safe, and then get moving."

"Why?" Tek slung him underarm and started down the street at a clumsy pace. "It's gotta be over by now." The beast within her snarled, forcing her to stop. She rubbed at her temple, uselessly scraping metal fingers against her helmet.

"Tek, look at that light," Cyborg said exasperatedly. Debris strewn about began to rumble, faintly at first, but with growing intensity. "Feel that? They're coming. Drop me. You'll need both your hands free."

"No," Tek insisted. "My…my battle gear got damaged. My armor is busted. I can't fight." The beast in her yowled, making her stumble and nearly drop Cyborg.

Cyborg eyed the scorched armor as best he could from his odd angle. "Get real. All that accessory crap just slowed you down. Your armor's barely scratched."

"**No**!" she snapped, answering the beast more than Cyborg. She could feel the creature tearing at her consciousness, stronger than it had been in months. The sluggish tranquilizers in her blood did nothing to dull its fury. Her control began to slip, and so she dropped Cyborg and leaned on her knees. Her heavy breath wheezed tinnily through her grille.

The debris danced to the tune of an approaching stampede. Cyborg lay on his side and watched the quake. "Tek," he said quickly, "I appreciate that you're scared, or angry, or hormonal, or whatever's screwing you up right now, but you could not pick a worse time to flake out. So cowgirl up and make with the bot-kicking!"

"_Nngh_…" The beast's roar deafened her. She clapped her hands to her helmet, but it did no good. So she flipped Cyborg through the side of a parked bus with her foot. The bus, long abandoned by its driver, rocked as she jumped in after him. The side of the bus screamed as she grasped its edges and puckered it shut.

Cyborg lay upside-down against a broken bus bench. He watched Tek's armor disappear into a closing blue-white aperture on her back. Her face was a mixture of terror and rage as she clawed at the back of her jumpsuit. "Are you crazy?" he snapped.

Tek didn't answer. She produced a small, black plastic tube from the belt of her jumpsuit and cracked it open with trembling hands. A hypodermic needle fell out of the case, its vial shimmering with clear liquid. "I can't do this," she said, tearing at her sleeve. Tears slid from the corners of her eyes. "I can't fight it. I can't."

"Tek, no!" cried Cyborg.

But the needle was already in her arm. She thumbed its plunger with a gasp. Her eyes fluttered, streaming tears as she stumbled toward Cyborg. She mumbled incoherently, losing her footing and falling against his chest hard. Her head thudded onto the filthy floor next to his. Her eyes glazed, half-open and seeing nothing. Saliva pooled beneath her parted lips.

Cyborg stared up at the ceiling as he listened to her labored breathing. His own eyelid grew too heavy to fight as the last of his reserves ran dry. Systems in his body slowed to standby. His consciousness faded to black. The final sound he heard was the bus around them shuddering with the approach of the mechanized army's rampage.

**To Be Continued**

I am super sorry for the delay, everyone. The last six months have been very off for me, and I've been struggling to keep my writing together. I'm trying to get back on track again with all my projects. If you'll bear with me, I'm looking forward to taking this story to new heights. Please stay tuned, because I promise, the best is yet to come.


	35. Red Robin: Aftermath

_All-Purpose Disclaimer_

**Teen Titans** is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Cartoon Network Inc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit and purely for entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, not to be reproduced without prior consent. Additional information used in creating **Teen Titans: Avatar** courtesy of Titans Tower Online.

* * *

_"And now we go live to the scene. Hank?"_

The screen centered on a tall, handsome man in his thirties wearing a blue suit and a microphone clipped to his tie. Behind him, a sunny day shone on what looked like the largest construction zone ever conceived. Skyscrapers stood bare, their glass facades torn to shards. The streets lay in cracked pieces small enough to sift like sand. Scrap metal littered every curb, much of it in the twisted shape of men. A blue bar identified the man as Henry McCoy, a correspondent reporting from Jump City, California.

Hank touched his ear briefly before nodding. _"Thanks. I'm standing here in what was once the thriving heart of Jump City. Behind me, these streets used to be filled with thousands of people enjoying this West Coast weather. But as you can see behind me, it has become a season of tragedy here."_

Images replaced the handsome Hank. New screens depicted the citizenry in dirty, tattered clothing, picking through rubble and ruined robots. As the people on the screen changed with every cut, their suffering did not, as Hank's voice continued, _"Little more than two weeks ago, Jump City suffered the worst act of domestic terrorism this country has ever seen. Literally hundreds of what can only be described as 'robotic soldiers' invaded via a series of underground tunnels, and were able to occupy every key point of the city within minutes."_

Now the screen filled with close-ups of the defeated "robotic soldiers," their metallic skulls exposed and horrible, their soulless eyes wide in artificial death. _"This faceless legion was unstoppable. Local authorities were powerless to stand against them. And the Teen Titans, Jump City's iconic adolescents, went largely unseen for a majority of the battle."_

A long shot of Titans Tower. Like the ailing buildings of Jump City, the Tower was surrounded by a scaffold, and bore deep scars that bled char from its open wounds. The Tower leaned toward the city on a cracked foundation that was apparent even from the mainland. _"The Titans, like the rest of Jump City's denizens, now squat in their broken home, trying to pick up the pieces. But even if the Titans were unable to stop this robotic menace, what did?"_

Shaky cinematography replaced the Tower on screen. It was labeled with another blue bar that read "amateur footage." The night sky of Jump City two weeks prior burned and smoked. Robot soldiers, these ones still intact, marched at the frightened cameraman, who, by the judge of his footage, was backpedaling awkwardly.

Then a flash of red rounded one of the buildings and swooped upon the robot phalanx. Bolts of light the color of blood flew from on high. Each robot struck by a bolt exploded in a plume of parts and fire. The red light hovered over them, deflecting their laser fire without concern. He glared at the robots, and a wave of devastation leapt from his eyes. The robots crumpled to dust beneath his glare. Synthetic innards boiled and burst from their chests.

Quaking, the cameraman zoomed on the light. The light's glow faded enough to see a few details of color and size. That terrible glare descended on the cameraman, who screamed and fell back. By the time he remembered his camera, the living light had flown off in search of more battle.

The screen shifted again, this time to a cleaned still of the clumsy close-up of the light. _"No one has yet identified this mysterious metahuman. His ability to defy gravity, his aura, and the silhouette on his chest has led locals to dub him 'Red Robin.' But whether or not this is the leader of the Titans with a facelift, or a newcomer, is yet to be determined. One thing is for certain, though."_

New footage of Red Robin interrupted the image. He flew above the streets, dodging cranes and scaffolding at uncanny speed, and collided with a fat teen in an overcoat perched atop a building's edge. The formerly cackling teen soared off the roof and down toward the street. This new camera operator, clearly more adept than the last, documented the fat teen's jaw-rattling landing through the roof of a waiting ambulance at the building's foot.

As the camera zoomed in on the scowling Red Robin high above, Hank's voiceover continued, _"This is one bird that's serious about the safety of Jump City."_

The scene changed yet again, this time depicting one of the innumerable rescue teams composed of firefighters, police, and volunteers digging through a collapsed building. It soon changed tired, miserable people in a line that stretched for blocks. They waited for a turn at a relief truck parked in front of a police station.

Back at Hank, the reporter put on a grim face appropriate to the scene. _"But even with a new hero and a heartwarming outpouring of aid and volunteer manpower, this once-growing community, now mourning hundreds of dead and with hundreds more still missing, has a lot of healing left to do."_ So moved was Hank by his own words that he failed to notice the streak of red burning across the sky. His camera operator did notice, and zoomed on the red contrail.

_"This is Hank McCoy, Jump City, reporting."_

On the other side of the television screen, in a little farmhouse in Kansas, Conner Kent dropped the spoonful of breakfast cereal he had forgotten since the news report had begun. His lantern jaw hung slack, and his blue eyes went wide behind glasses that did nothing for his vision. His spoon plunked back into his bowl as he stood and approached the television set on the kitchen counter. By the time he reached its dials, the story was long over, succeeded by a groundbreaking expose on pet show scandal.

Conner blinked hard. The image of Red Robin remained burned into the back of his eyes. When at last he had gathered his wits, he came to a decision at once. "Missus Kent?" he called into the house. Then he cringed, and corrected himself with, "I mean, Ma?"

"What is it, Conner?" a sweet, older voice called back from the upstairs.

"Could you write me a note for school?" He ran to his backpack, which he'd tossed carelessly on the table. Its contents spilled out with an unzippered shake. Books and papers buried his breakfast.

The sweetness in Martha Kent's voice calcified. "You're not trying to pretend you're sick again, are you? You and I both know better."

Conner sifted through the bag's contents with a silent curse at his organizational ineptitude. "No, Ma," he said, "I'm not sick, and I'm not pretending."

"Then what is it? Is everything okay?" Instantly, the suspicion in her voice vanished, replaced with genuine concern. It was that kind of turnaround that erased Conner's doubt about his recent "adoption" into the Kent family.

Cursing again, Conner shoved his hand into the backpack. His scowl became a smile as he found pay dirt stuck to the bottom of the bag. He pulled from its depths a wad of cloth composed of metallic blue, red, and gold. When he unfurled the wrinkled cloth, he revealed a shrunken suit with a golden shield gracing its chest.

"It's an 'out of town' thing, Ma," he called back. He smoothed the shield, and felt bolstered by its 'S.' "Something came up."

* * *

**Teen Titans  
****Avatar**

_By Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Red Robin**: _Aftermath_

Road cones flew from the crushing eighteen wheels of a semi tractor and its trailer. The tall red truck careened around a corner, tilting onto nine wheels and skidding on stripped pavement before slamming its full load back down. Rubber burned and tar flew as it peeled out. The trailer fishtailed and struck a building still under repair, sending construction workers diving for cover.

The orange-vested workers had just started to pick themselves up when they dived again, this time to escape the hungry treads of a tank shaped vaguely like a beetle. The silver tank's blue veins throbbed as its engines roared, spinning its treads with speed enough to shred the pavement and catch the truck.

Behind the tank's glowering windshield, six eyes followed the semi truck around another harrowing turn. The tank's alloyed driver jerked his control yoke to avoid a crowd of pedestrians on the sidewalk. "Here's a thought," Cyborg snarked as the CUTTER leaned up on one set of treads. "Why doesn't 'someone' try slowing the truck down?"

Raven sat behind Cyborg, and was engaged in a glaring contest with her control board. "I would, if 'someone' could keep either vehicle from swerving for one second. Besides, most of the weapons on this monstrosity will vaporize the truck outright."

"We need an intercept course that gets us ahead of him. How about it, B?"

The keyboard chattered at Beast Boy's clumsy typing. His dashboard screen blatted at him in red letters that read "ERROR." He shook his head and said, "No good. I guess all the traffic sensors are way down there on the repair list. But your ultra-tank can catch them, right?"

"We wouldn't have to catch them if someone had been watching the truck like they'd supposed to have been…" Raven leveled a glare that dipped Beast Boy's ears.

Cyborg flinched as the CUTTER's treads consumed the back end of a parked pickup truck. "Knock it off!" he snapped. "We'll just have to run it down. Can you at least figure out who's driving the truck?"

"Uhh…"

Raven shoved her panel aside in disgust. She flopped back into her seat with her arms crossed over her chest. "The sensor board, genius," she said to Beast Boy.

"Uhh…"

"The blue buttons, Beast Boy," Cyborg grunted in a world-weary voice.

Beast Boy wedged his tongue in his teeth and punched the blue portion of his panel. A section of the windshield blinked and zoomed on the side of the truck. Before Beast Boy could refine his scan, the truck driver leaned out his window, revealing muscle and tattoos that ended Beast Boy's guesswork. "Are you kidding me?" the shapeshifter groaned.

The driver turned back, almost losing his sneer in his ratty black hair caught in the wind. His voice carried into the CUTTER's shotgun microphone as he shouted, "Back off, screws! This truck belongs to Jonny Rancid!"

Rancid swung a pistol of ludicrous proportions out the cab window. The Titan trio watched, first on the zoom screen, then through the rest of the windshield, as Rancid unloaded a gout of fire into the street behind him. A spray of pavement struck the CUTTER, which bounced in the crater left by Rancid's gun, spoiling its steering. Cyborg swore and pulled hard on the yoke to no avail. The CUTTER swerved and struck a light post, jerking to rest.

The damage report streamed across the inside of Cyborg's scowl. He watched the street light sway and fall in front of them, striking a fire hydrant across the intersection. Water fountained high in an arc that ended on the CUTTER. Cyborg groaned and rested his head back against his seat while the water rippled on the windshield. "That could've gone better," he grumbled. Raven and Beast Boy gave pained groans as response.

Rancid cackled as he watched the CUTTER disappear from his side mirror. He snapped his fingers and crowed, "That's right. Jonny rides faster, drives harder, and shoots straighter than any snot-nosed…"

Around the next corner, Rancid spotted a black blur descending from the sky. A blazing red scowl stared him down as the blur coalesced into a figure that floated even with the truck's snub nose. Rancid's sneer swung back a half-second ahead of his pistol. "Ha! Bad call playin' Chicken with me, baby. Jonny Rancid doesn't brake for—"

True to his word, Jonny Rancid didn't brake at all. His truck struck the figure in black at full speed. The figure did not move. Physics resolved the stalemate, to the distress of the truck. Metal screamed and collapsed into folds as the truck stopped dead against the figure. The engine shredded against him as though split by a wedge. Rancid, who laughed in danger's face and eschewed conventional auto safety, found himself sailing out the windshield, creating a spray of cranial blood and broken glass along the way.

The figure reached up and caught Rancid by the neck with one hand. Rancid gagged and blinked his eyes clear of blood to find a familiar face scowling at him from behind the glare of glowing red eyes. The glare obscured part of the figure's facial details, but left enough for Rancid to find some recognition therein. "You…?" Rancid said hoarsely.

Robin's glove creaked as his fingers tightened. He watched Rancid's tongue loll and swell. A smirk cracked his lips as Rancid pounded his arm to no avail. The large man might as well have been pounding on a steel cable. Slowly, Robin floated to the ground, letting Rancid's boot tips scrape the pavement as he thrashed for air that Robin's grasp would not allow.

"You can't…" croaked Rancid. His fingers pulled weakly against Robin's forearm. "Uncle…Uncle…"

"Mercy?" Robin's smirk cooled. His attuned ears detected the distinct rumblings of a customized tank. He threw Rancid to the ground, who gasped desperately at Robin's boots. "No mercy, Jonny. Only justice."

The CUTTER's approach masked the agonized screams coming from in front of the ruined truck. Cyborg guided his tank to the rear of the wreck and skidded its treads so that its side faced forward. Then he punched the hatch's release and led his friends in a charge down the lowering ramp. His hand expanded into a sonic lens as he, Raven, and Beast Boy ran around the truck's cab. "Okay, Jonny, give yourself…"

A twisted pile of limbs lay atop a mewling torso. Not one of them, leg or arm, looked like any feasible extension of any human being. Cyborg only recognized the limbs by their attachment to Rancid, who could barely breathe. Ragged, squeaking gasps escaped his swollen lips, which were the only shrieks of pain he could muster with several ribs punched through his lung. Cyborg heard Beast Boy gasp and backpedal. Even Raven paused, and the air around her grew cool and heavy.

Red light receded into the sky. Cyborg followed it with a cold gaze. A chill ran up his metal spine when he felt the red light staring back at him before it vanished into the gray clouds hanging over the city.

"Beast Boy," Cyborg murmured, "Let's go check on the cargo. Raven, you stabilize…him…until the paramedics get here."

Raven glanced hesitantly at Rancid. The air grew colder still at her visible dread. "I… Yes. All right."

The sonic cannon clacked back into Cyborg's arm as he and Beast Boy rounded the truck. It was a small matter for him to rend the wedged doors from their hinges to expose Rancid's bounty. Boxes of blankets and crates of sundries lay inside the trailer, jostled and cracked, but otherwise unharmed.

"Super," Cyborg remarked of the canned food. "Now a few less people are gonna go hungry and cold."

Beast Boy was noticeably shaking as he stared around the truck's edge. He watched Raven's face twist as she lay glowing hands upon Rancid's chest. She bit her lip to stifle the scream that Rancid's shattered jaw could no longer form. "Can you believe what Robin did to Jonny?" Beast Boy murmured.

Cyborg rolled his eye skyward and scowled. "Let's just get this back to the relief station, B," he grunted.

"I mean, he's always been hardcore, but—"

"**Beast Boy**." The name left Cyborg's lips more sharply than he meant. He took a long breath and let it out slowly before he said, "Let's just…take care of this."

* * *

Robin descended into the abandoned warehouse. The hole he'd punched in its roof a fortnight ago he'd widened to allow easier access. He didn't worry about anyone spotting his entrance. Like his mask, such trite concerns had left him at the time of his epiphany. 

The dust in the air stirred at his passing. The same stale smell of debris permeated Jump City. Robin didn't notice it. He didn't breathe anymore, except to talk, which he did rarely nowadays.

He dropped through the building's foundation and into a dark void below. His movement triggered a series of fluorescent lights lining the ceiling, which shed light upon a floor carpeted with broken chains and shattered gears. Scorch marks marred the metal walls of the stadium-sized space. The former upper gantry lay in a warped ring around the chamber's perimeter. Cracked screens the size of houses hung on the wall, silent and black.

The only feature that remained intact was the throne seated atop a wilted pneumatic stalk in the chamber's center. Flickering consoles surrounded the throne. They had been his sole companionship in the lair. They, and the golden sprite standing behind the throne, right where he knew she would be.

Starfire watched him land on the platform. She made no move to greet him. Her face remained placid. It was a far cry from two weeks ago, the first time she had awaited him in his new lair.

_"Robin," she had pleaded._

He walked past her, bathing her in the light of his glare for the barest of seconds before mashing his fingers into the platform's console.

_"What?" he had snapped coolly._

For a moment, she remained, watching him as impassively as she could. He typed as though she didn't exist. High above, three of the stadium-sized screens flickered to life with maps of the city. The fourth screen remained silent, cracked by a fallen gear during The Attack.

_"Robin, you cannot continue this crusade. Return home with us to the Tower. Return home with me."_

Keys clacked beneath Robin's purposeful hands. The projected maps above them flickered and changed as he mapped out the progress of the relief teams. He imputed cites of thefts he had both witnessed and stopped, creating a list of hot spots for trouble in the evolving Jump City.

_"That isn't my home. Not anymore. And I'm not going anywhere with you."_

Her face remained placid. Her eyes betrayed nothing. But her knuckles cracked as her hands became whitened fists, shaking at her sides. Only when she felt the bite of her own fingernails in her palms did she force her fingers straight again.

_"Please, Robin. You do not belong in this awful place. This is…his domain. Not yours."_

At her cracking knuckles, Robin paused in his typing. The harsh light in his eyes faded until only his irises glowed blood red. They trailed to the edge of his vision, catching sight of Starfire. His mouth tightened.

_"You betrayed me. I counted on you. I counted on all of you. But I was wrong. The Titans are nothing but an anchor, Koriand'r, and I'm done with them. I work alone."_

_"Robin—"_

He glanced back and spoke to her for the first time in a fortnight: "Are you still here?" he asked indifferently.

Starfire stared hard as Robin resumed his typing. She felt a chill as his half glare turned back to the overhead monitors. For a moment, in his red armor and cold voice, Starfire saw someone else in him. Someone she hated. She took to the air, forcing herself to keep her eyes away from what had become of her love. She knew she would not return to this horrible place again.

* * *

Starfire had wiped her eyes clear long before descending to the island's rocky crest. She passed the remains of the Tower and its skeletal scaffolding. The late sun glinted in the fractured windows. A small collection of tents were camped at the base of the Tower. She landed in their midst. 

Floating debris inside a field of impossible black bobbed out the angled door of the Tower. Raven walked behind the detritus, guiding it with a frown that caught sight of Starfire's arrival. "Good. You're back. We could use a hand," said Raven.

A green gorilla loped out of the Tower on Raven's heels. He carried a burlap sack that overflowed with blackened limbs. The gorilla shrank into a gangly green human to wipe his brow. "Whew. We've been clearing this place for weeks, and I'm still finding Slade's robot crap stuck in places I didn't know we had. At this rate, our 'T' is gonna be tilted forever."

The ether faded from Raven's scowl as her detritus tumbled to the ground. She turned her narrowed gaze toward the ocean and the setting sun. "It would be going a lot faster if some people would help," she said loudly enough for her voice to carry.

Starfire offered the pair a wan smile. Then she floated toward the object of Raven's scorn, who sat at the edge of the cliff overlooking the sunset. "Greetings, friend," Starfire said to her. "Are you well?"

Blearily, Tek turned away from the colors dancing on the ocean. Her eyes had trouble focusing on Starfire through their glaze. Bags hung beneath each lid, deepened by each ensuing night she robbed herself of healthy sleep. The crushed plastic of hypodermic cases littered the ground around her.

Tek smiled woodenly at Starfire and wiped her mouth. "Hey," she slurred. Then she frowned as though straining her brain mightily. "Um, Cyborg wanted to talk to you. He's…um…"

"I will find him," Starfire assured the sallow girl. She turned to leave, and then paused. "Tek, are you…" But when she turned back, Tek's empty gaze had returned to the ocean. Starfire shook her head and left her friend to the crashing of the waves.

She flew to a collection of cobbled solar panels arranged beside the Tower near a solitary tent. Cyborg sat in a sagging camping chair next to the tent. A thick cable protruded from his chest and connected him to the central battery into which the solar panels collected their meager charge. He looked tired in more ways than one.

His voice sounded heavy as he rose to greet her with, "Hey, Kory."

"Victor," she replied cheerily.

Before she could begin, he lifted a hand to stop her. "We could have used you out there today. Beast Boy had to cover your shift at one of the volunteer aid distribution sites. Jonny Rancid decided to hit it, and almost got away with enough to starve and freeze a city block."

Her cheeriness fell. "I know," she said, shifting uncomfortably. "I was…patrolling. And…"

He levied a meaningful stare against her. "I know exactly what you were doing, Starfire. And I've tried to be understanding about it."

"I know."

"But this is getting to be too much. Beast Boy's been all thumbs. Raven's a walking volcano, and she's just waiting to blow at anything. I'm barely holding a charge here," he said, disgustedly tugging at the cable speared in his chest. "And Tek is…" He sighed. "Tek's already gone through half of what we salvaged from the Medical Bay."

"I know." Starfire's voice came in a hoarse whisper.

Another breath steeled Cyborg's expression. "This has to stop," he told her. "You can't spend all day moping and shadowing him. He walked out on us, Starfire. We can't afford for you to do the same. We need you to get over it and get back in the game. Understand?"

"…yes."

Frustration spent, Cyborg collapsed back in his chair, which squeaked and threatened to break. He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. After a long, uncomfortable moment, he asked, "How was he?"

Starfire's chin dropped to her chest. "The same," she said.

"He was there today. At the heist. Stopped Jonny from getting away with the truck while we were flopping like amateurs."

At this, Starfire perked, surprised. "How was he?"

"Worse," grunted Cyborg. His brows knit at the mere memory of it. "Rancid will be lucky to walk again. It's worse than what he did to Control Freak. If he keeps this up, we'll have to do something about it." Starfire reacted as though shot, staring in shock at Cyborg's grim scowl. "Not that I even know what," he muttered, leaning on his knees in thought. "God. I swear, Kory, if we don't do something, I feel like this whole mess is gonna be hopeless."

"Hopeless?"

The voice came from on high. Cyborg and Starfire looked up to find a silhouette descending from the sun with arms spread wide. At first, Starfire thought it might be Robin returning to them at last, and her heart soared. But the silhouette was too broad of chest to be the Teen Wonder, and as he fell out of the sun, she saw a costume different than Robin's morbid black and red uniform. This figure wore red, blue, and gold in a shimmering bodysuit that hugged the frame of an Olympian muscleman. Black hair curled upon his crown, and deep blue eyes flashed behind a pair of round sunglasses.

The figure landed as Cyborg and Starfire stood astonished. He straightened his leather jacket on his broad shoulders, and smiled with perfect teeth. "This sounds like a job for Superboy," he said impishly.

**To Be Continued**


	36. Red Robin: Justice

**

* * *

**

Teen Titans  
Avatar 

_By Cyberwraith9

* * *

_**Red Robin**: _Justice_

A Californian chill hung beneath a blanket of stars. Beyond the island's edge, Jump Bay murmured peacefully at high tide, and beyond that, the city stood dark and silent.

Superboy leaned back on the long, scorched, warped I-beam set alongside a campfire ring in the Titans' backyard. He watched Cyborg fill the circle of stones with wooden debris, and remarked, "These are some real nice digs you've got here. It's no Watchtower, but it has a certain rustic charm."

Cyborg hunched over the kindling and flipped his thumb tip back. A lighter extended from the open digit, which he flicked in vain to create a flame. After weeks of use without refill or repair, his lesser systems were beginning to suffer. "I didn't realize that super-comedy was part of the Kryptonian package," he grumbled.

"Here, allow me." Superboy began rubbing his thumb and forefinger vigorously. Smoke drifted from his blurring hand, until the tips of his glove glowed white hot. He pressed his hand to the kindling, which smoldered, and then sparked into an infant flame.

Begrudgingly, Cyborg grunted in gratitude, and began feeding the flame with incrementally larger pieces of detritus he had salvaged from the city. "So, you know Robin?" he asked.

Superboy grinned. "The big bad bird and me have been friends practically all my life. Granted, that doesn't mean as much when you're a little less than two, but still. I owe him a lot, which is why I'm actually debasing myself to the point of being seen in California."

"You're a real hero," Cyborg said snidely. "I'm just glad you could take the time to help out your pal in the aftermath of all this darned inconvenient tragedy."

The Teen of Tomorrow shrugged. "Hey, the world keeps on turning, right? In the last month, I've been blown up, had my aging stopped and jump-started, traveled through time, got cloned, and got adopted by one of my dads' families. You guys have it rough here, but it's a big world. Besides, from the way Robin talks about you guys, I always figured you had the sitch locked up."

Curiosity and apprehension trickled through Cyborg's circuits. "Robin told you about us?"

"We wrote and called pretty regularly up until a few months ago. I just thought he was caught up in an investigation, like the one time with that orange dude. Slate? Whatever. It wasn't until this morning, when I saw him doing some kind of firefly routine, that I thought something was seriously wrong."

Cyborg paused and stared into the fire. Then he asked, "Cloned? Seriously?"

"A clone of a clone is an ugly thing," Superboy said soberly. "And I mean that in a lot of ways."

A small box landed next to the fire, tossed carelessly by Beast Boy before he sat down next to Superboy. Raven and Starfire weren't far behind. "Dude, it's so weird that you know Robin. Who knew he was a person before he came here?" said Beast Boy.

"That's funny coming from the green kid who claws up his tent in his sleep," Raven deadpanned.

Beast Boy's ears dipped at her dig, but then sprang up at Superboy's laugh. "He was a real blast in his sidekick days. I thought Batman was gonna blow a blood vessel when he boosted the Batmobile so we could go cruising."

"No. Way." Beast Boy scoured Superboy's face for the slightest sign of duplicity and found none. "Robin's always yelled at me just for playing games on the Titan mainframe. You're not telling me he stole anything, let alone Batman's car."

"Heh. Yeah. I tell you, it's cool that he moved so far away—what's two thousand miles to the guy who flies, right? But there are times when I seriously miss Tim."

Superboy leaned forward and looked back with a reminiscent glaze in his eyes. It was several seconds' worth of ominous silence before he realized that all of the Titans were staring. Raven and Starfire had frozen in the middle of pulling cans out of the box Beast Boy had brought. Even Cyborg's ocular implant looked larger as it bathed Superboy in red incredulity.

Superboy slapped his forehead and groaned. "Oh, no. You guys didn't know his real name? Crap, he's gonna be pissed. I'm a little new to the dual identity thing."

"He told you his name?" It was the first time Starfire had spoken since Superboy's arrival, and it came in a voice too miniscule for the alien warrior. "You know him?"

He glanced about, confused. "Yeah," he said slowly. "You know his name too, right?"

Beast Boy exploded, "Dude! We waited for, like, ever for him to tell us something. We had to do this massive beach vacation before he even ponied up his first name!"

"Stupid, self-indulgent waste of time," Raven muttered of the beach trip.

"Look, guys," Superboy said, feeling self-conscious amidst the referential conversation, "I don't want to seem ungrateful for the hospitality. Really, uh…" He caught a look at the can in Starfire's hand, and said, "Baked beans really hit the spot after an all day flight. But do you guys know when Tim's gonna get back?"

Again the campfire circle lapsed into uncomfortable silence. Superboy looked among their varying expressions. He stopped upon Cyborg's stony quiet, which broke to say, "He won't."

Beast Boy glanced at the silent Starfire. "He has some…new digs in town. Doesn't get by very often. Or at all."

"Oh. Okay." Superboy looked around a moment more, clearly embarrassed, as though he wished he had never bothered to come at all. "So where can I find him?"

"Can't you use your super-vision to find him?" Raven asked snidely.

"If I had supervision, I wouldn't have flown cross-country to camp out underneath a giant letter." Superboy's laughter and smile died quickly under Raven's withering glare. "No? Nothing? Okay. Seriously, if someone could point me in the right…"

He trailed off as the Titans stood and left one by one. Cyborg went first without saying another word. Beast Boy left last, but offered Superboy an apologetic shrug. As they walked back toward their tower, the Boy of Steel found himself alone with a morose alien and a crackling fire.

With a deep breath, he drew himself up. "Sure. Fine. So glad I could meet the great bunch of friends Tim told me all about," he called to their backs. "You guys have been terrific. Jerks."

He was about to take to the skies when Starfire's quiet voice stopped him. "You know Tim?"

Superboy paused to examine her. She stood as tall as he, which was a rarity to a teen already over the six foot mark. If he had never met her, Superboy could have painted exactly the girl before him from the collective hours of phone conversations and letters Tim had spent talking about her. Only one detail would be different in Superboy's rendition; her eyes, which Superboy had heard endlessly "shone like stars," or something equally as poetically obnoxious, were now listless and dull.

He floated back to the island and stared at her listless eyes. "He told you who he is?" she asked. Her voice broke as her eyes began to shimmer in the firelight. "He took off his mask for you? He let you…know him?"

The discomfort Superboy felt grew to extremes. "This is getting a little weird, but…yeah. Tim and I were pals. Like I said, he's my first friend, and I'm worried about him. And I'm wondering why his other friends aren't out there knocking some sense into him. Aren't you his best friend?"

Starfire looked away to hide her tears. She clenched her chest to keep the sobbing from her voice. "I will tell you where you may find him," she said.

"Thank you!" Superboy said exasperatedly.

_And I pray to X'hal that he will listen to you,_ she added silently.

* * *

Jump City looked bleak from overhead. For the second week straight, it remained ominously dark. The whisper of the wind traveling its empty streets was the only sound to reach his sharp ears. Moonlight glinted in the open scars too numerable to count. The city looked dead. 

Robin perched in the sky with his glowing gaze pointed down. He did not bob in the air or move with the wind. It was as though he stood upon a column a mile high. He had not moved in hours, and would not move until he was needed. Every sense strained, heightened with extraterrestrial might, driven by very terrestrial anger, to scour his city. Because of this, he felt and heard the air parting, and spotted his visitor well before the jacketed figure in red and blue reached him.

"Hey! Tim!" Superboy called. He reached Robin's height and floated even with him. An infectious smile lit his face as he slid his sunglasses down his nose. "Man, I was starting to think I'd never catch up to you. This is a hell of a spot you picked for yourself. Windy much?"

Not one muscle in Robin's tensed body twitched at his arrival. "Kon-El," he said plainly in greeting.

Superboy snorted. "Oh, come on. You aren't even a little surprised to see me?"

"I don't do 'surprise.' What do you want?"

"What, that's it? 'What do you want?' I came here to see you, bird brain!" Superboy's frown came quickly and disappeared quicker. "C'mon, let's ditch these clouds and go grab a slice of pie. I've got, like, a ton to tell you. These last couple of months have been crazy."

"I'm busy."

"Busy?" Superboy echoed. He looked down. The silent city looked back. "Busy with what? Is the city going to sneak out after curfew? Come on, my treat. Ma and Pa gave me an advance on my allowance. Oh! I have a ma and pa now. And an allowance. Another name, too. Crazy, huh?"

"I'm busy."

Superboy's frown lingered this time. He circled Robin, who acted as though he didn't exist. "Okay, see, this is why I came. In the last four months, I've seen you for about thirty seconds, and that was on the news. You turn red and glowy, and you can't even call? I fly out, and you can't take an hour to mooch some pie?"

Robin's eyes flicked briefly to Superboy. "I don't eat anymore," he said. Then his eyes narrowed on the landscape. He inverted and dove in a blur of motion.

The supersonic crack of Robin's exit rang in Superboy's ears. He shook them clear and followed. "Who the hell says 'no' to pie?" he muttered.

Down at the feet of the tall, torn skyscrapers, a titanic struggle raged between two men over a nondescript brown box. The children of one of the men huddled behind a battered mailbox as they watched their father grunt and swear with his fingers crinkling the cardboard. Finally, the father stumbled back with the box in tow. He clutched his prize and glared at the other man. "You get the hell away!" he yelled.

The other man's eyes glinted. He reached into his jacket and produced a cheap revolver, which he brandished at the father with the skill of a cinematic henchman. "I tried being nice," he said with an edged voice. "Now give me the box!"

The father dropped the box and stepped between his shrieking children and the gunman. Even as the gunman approached warily, his shaking revolver aimed at the father's chest, the father cried, "Don't do this. My family—"

His plea fell silent as a heavenly bolt of scarlet enveloped the gunman's hand. He screamed and fell away from the box. The remnants of his gun dripped to the ground. He wrapped himself fetal around what remained of his hand and sobbed curses.

Robin descended, his haunting mask of light glaring from his eyes. More light trickled from his fists, which wrapped into the gunman's jacket and hauled him off the ground. The gunman's pleas devolved into terror as Robin's eyes flared. "Jump City has no room for your kind," Robin growled.

Tears dribbled from the man's gaunt face. "Please," he blubbered. His hair and brows smoldered beneath Robin's glare. His tears steamed, boiling angry red streaks into his face.

"ROBIN!" Superboy landed heavily behind him, startling the victimized family. Their cries made him turn. He offered them a calming gesture, and then picked up their box. A peek inside the contested package revealed a blanket and a few canned goods. He handed the food to the grateful father, who ushered his awestruck children away with all due haste. "Robin, it's just food. Back off," said Superboy.

Robin's glare continued unabated. "He's a thief," Robin uttered of the man writhing in his grasp. Suddenly, the gunman was gone. Robin saw Superboy easing him onto the pavement several feet away.

Superboy felt his innards twist at the stump where the man's hand had been. The flesh around it looked like melted wax with bits of bone sticking out. Blisters oozed on the man's cherry red face. Gritting his teeth, Superboy looked back and said, "He's just some hungry schmuck."

Robin approached the pair in slow, measured steps. His glare narrowed on the trembling gunman. "He assaulted a family with a gun over five dollars' worth of canned peas. He's a criminal. Stand aside."

"He waved a gun at somebody because there isn't enough to go around. That makes him an idiot, not a supervillain," Superboy insisted.

"I won't ask again," Robin said.

"For God's sake, Robin," exclaimed Superboy. "This isn't Darkseid! Yes, he should go to jail. But you can't go blowing off limbs—"

Robin's blast struck his face and knocked him back several steps. Red glare clung to Superboy's vision as he reeled with the blow. He blinked hard, jostling the charred remains of his sunglasses off his nose. Astonished, he saw Robin lower his glowing palm and nod in satisfaction.

Robin bent to collect the hysterical gunman when he felt the solid impact of Superboy's shoulder in his stomach. The check knocked him high, where he caught himself and stabilized his flight. The sensation of the check rippled through his abdominals. It was the first sensation of anything he had felt in weeks.

Superboy straightened between Robin and the gunman. "You owe me a new pair of shades," he said gruffly. "Oh, and standing aside? Not gonna happen. Now, why don't we get stubby here to the paramedics, and then go and chat about—"

A stream of scarlet wrath tore Superboy across the street. He spun into the side of a building and then bounced onto the sidewalk, leaving matching craters in each. Wisps of smoke and energy trailed from his body as he rose unsteadily. His uniform remained pristine, but his treasured leather jacket hung as a carbonized scrap from one arm. "You son of a bitch," he said, looking down his arm. "That jacket was a gift."

"I know. I gave it to you," Robin reminded him.

They met in midair, driving the full might of their collective strength into the collision. Thunder rang with each blow they traded. Reds, blues, blacks, and golds chased each other in a fight that moved too fast for lesser beings to follow.

Superboy swung a two-handed punch that furrowed Robin through fresh pavement. The former Teen Wonder slammed into the base of a skyscraper under repair, which trembled as he stood. Red rage trailed behind Robin's return to the fight, where he drove his knuckles into Superboy's solar plexus, emptying his lungs of steel in a cold rush.

Gasping, Superboy caught Robin's next punch, bobbing back in midair against the pile driver force. "Give it up, Tim," Superboy wheezed. "You're strong, but I'm the one wearing the 'S.' I'm still stronger."

A fervent thought activated Superboy's wild talent, his tactile telekinesis. The invisible force blasted Robin away from Superboy like a shot. Robin streaked into a neighboring construction site, where he punched through the drum of a cement mixing truck. The drum's mouth flared red and rocked at his entry, and then fell silent and dark.

Superboy leaned on his knees, still in the air, and gulped greedily until he caught his breath. "Hate to do it, Tim," he muttered to himself, "but you need a serious—"

The cement truck exploded, pluming fire and shrapnel into the sky. From the eruption came a living bolt of red that slammed into Superboy and drove him through an entire skyscraper. The building grinded against Superboy as he felt powerful, burning arms encircle his chest and drive him hard out the building's other side.

Robin released Superboy to spin his boot heel into the Boy of Steel's lantern jaw. As Superboy tumbled away, Robin drew his hands together and unleashed a concentrated stream of his red rage. The energy struck Superboy square in his 'S' shield, hammering him through two more buildings in a path that took both combatants toward one of the relief centers of the city.

The two teens plowed through buildings and trucks until they made meteoric landfall at the edge of the relief center. The small fleet of RVs and temporary structures rattled at the crater Superboy dug sideways in the pavement. Tired, huddled masses stirred awake from their makeshift beds, where they camped to be first in line for the next day's handouts. Their bleary eyes adjusted to the dark to watch Superboy stagger out of the ground.

Superboy felt Robin's punch without ever seeing it come. Raw anger glimmered around Robin's knuckles as they crossed Superboy's nose, chest, chin, and neck. Blinded, Superboy lurched forward and swung a haymaker, only to cut the air.

"Typical Metropolis brawler," he heard Robin say. Fingertips slammed into Superboy's temples with impossible force. Superboy's world blacked out. He reeled drunkenly, and heard, "Muscle your way through every fight. No style. No strategy."

A kick to the leg knocked Superboy to his knees. Another kick rattled his skull. Desperate, Superboy spun and lunged. He felt his hands mesh with another's. As his vision cleared, Robin's strained scowl came into focus just inches beyond his nose.

"And by the way," Robin growled, as Superboy gathered another telekinetic blast, "you're not stronger than me."

Superboy howled as the bones in his hands cracked in Robin's grasp. Robin's hands and eyes blazed, irradiating Superboy with the full fury of Robin's power. His 'S' shield peeled from his chest as his uniform shredded beneath the onslaught. Then Robin gathered the energy back, packing it into fistfuls of devastation, which he hurled down into Superboy's face.

The fearful urban campers screamed at the wave of dust and light roiling from the crater. It was like the day of the Attack, concentrated and localized, and mercifully brief, but the onlookers screamed regardless. When the dust settled, they saw their new beacon of hope standing over Superboy.

Robin's eyes burned the dust from Superboy's skin as he reached into the crater and lofted the insensate teen. "This is my city, Superboy. I gave you every chance to get out of my way. You decided to aid and abet a criminal instead. Problem is, there isn't a jail around here that could actually hold you."

He looked around at the gathering crowd. The noise of the fight had attracted the denizens of the city for miles. Already, the crowd circled him completely, ten people thick, remaining well out of reach as if it would have made a difference. "Let this be a lesson to everyone," Robin announced loudly, holding Superboy high for all to see. "For anyone who thinks they can break the law, let this remind you that justice still reigns in Jump City. Let everyone know who protects you."

Brilliant red heat lit upon Robin's fingertip. He thrust it against Superboy's bare chest with purposeful precision.

* * *

Beast Boy tugged unconsciously at the sleeve of his uniform as he wandered the blackened halls of the Tower. His flashlight bobbed over uneven floors, reminding him of how much work they had left to do. A strange noise had reached Beast Boy's ears down at their campsite. He had tiptoed on mouse toes from the slumbering camp to investigate the noise's source, and now skulked through the Tower in search of the noise's source. 

They had spent much of the first week evacuating the Vehicle Bay to discover that the contents therein had more or less survived the Tower's destruction. The Icarus was still trapped beneath the foundation until they could return power to its launch tunnel. It had taken everything Raven had to teleport the CUTTER to the mainland.

Beast Boy knew Raven hated acting as their ferry. Her teleportation had become a necessity; the city's first project had been to block off the Titan Tunnel Transport System. Beast Boy had offered to carry them on whaleback to alleviate her burden, but she had liked that idea even less. Lately, it seemed as though she simply liked Beast Boy less altogether.

He found the elusive rattle in the basement. A single work light lit the cavernous room, mounted on the construction scaffolding that Beast Boy climbed down to reach the crunchy floor. Cyborg worked in the yellow light on the dead, exposed power core of the Tower. The burly man-machine looked up to grunt in greeting of Beast Boy before he returned to fumbling with his tools, which sprouted from his fingers.

Rubbing his eyes at the brightness, Beast Boy said, "Why are you still up?"

"I'm organizing a 'Friends of the Titans' bake sale. What's it look like?" grumbled Cyborg. He cranked a bolt on the core's housing with his ratchet (also his middle finger at the moment). The stressed bolt broke loudly. Cyborg swore and eyeballed the busted bolt. "I can't keep living off of solar cells, or I'll be in shutdown by the end of the week. We need power to do anything else around here."

"Oh." Beast Boy watched Cyborg shift his attention to a different bolt. Then he asked, "Can I help?"

Cyborg snorted. "Sure. I'll get this shielding off, and then you can figure out how to jumpstart a controlled fusion reaction without turning the island into muddy glass."

Beast Boy's expression fell. "Sorry," he muttered, and turned to leave.

With a bitter sigh, Cyborg retracted his ratchet. "Sorry, Gar," he called to Beast Boy's back. "I'm just tired, and run down, and really sick of looking at this place. It's not you." Beast Boy wandered back as Cyborg slumped against the core. His optics travelled the room, cataloguing in painstaking resolution everything he had left to fix. "Tell you what," he told Beast Boy, "you can help by taking five with me."

Beast Boy slumped next to him at once, his back squeaking against the core. They sat in amicable silence for a moment, protecting each other from the haunting silence of the tower with each other's company.

"Hey, Vic," Beast Boy said after a fashion. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, Gar?"

Looking puzzled, Beast Boy asked, "How come we didn't help out Superdude? I know Robin's not your favorite subject," he said quickly, "but I know you're not keen on this one-man army he's running in the city. And I know you're bummed about him leaving, even if you won't admit it. Why not track him down?"

Cyborg took his time answering. He could have blown the question off, or changed the subject, knowing full well that Beast Boy would let it pass without a word. Because of that, Cyborg knew his friend deserved his honesty. "Because Tim's really screwed up right now, and I don't think any of us can help him. He took this attack harder than anybody, and now he's looking to make up for it. If he feels like he needs to work that out for himself, none of us are going to change his mind. Believe me, I know."

"But what about the people getting hurt?"

The memory of Jonny Rancid the pretzel knotted Cyborg's synthetic polymer stomach. He recalled, too, the sight of Control Freak being hooked up to a respirator as he was hauled away in an ambulance. "It doesn't sit right with me, Gar, but….maybe that's what Jump City needs." He saw Beast Boy's ears spring in shock. He was equally surprised by his own admission. "This whole mess happened because we let Slade play us. And right now, people are scared, and more worried about if they're gonna eat or not. Maybe someone needs to bust a few heads to show them that there're still people willing to protect them. If some jerks who've got it coming gotta take some lumps for it, then…maybe it's okay."

Beast Boy remained silent for a long moment. Then he murmured, "She played all of us, didn't she?" Too quickly, he morphed his scowl into a smile, and said, "Well, I'm with you, Vic. Whatever you decide, I've got your back."

Cyborg started to say something else. Then he offered a weak smile, and instead said, "Thanks."

"Now how about we take a real crack at this core? Maybe I don't know fusion, but I'm pretty handy." Beast Boy transformed into a wriggling octopus. He flapped on the floor, picking up several components of the core and waving them at Cyborg.

The hard-won laugh was halfway up Cyborg's throat when his arm beeped. He activated its communicator panel with a thought. His circuits identified the signal as a third party originating in the city. "This is Cyborg. Go ahead," he said.

_"Cyborg? This is Lieutenant Smith, Jump City Police Department, Special Crimes Unit."_ Cyborg recognized the gruff voice at once, and remembered the contact frequency they had given the police with which to contact them. _"I need you downtown __**now**__."_

Where once Cyborg would have charged up the steps to answer the call, he now slouched lower, wearied by the mere thought. "Lieutenant, it's not that we don't want to help, but we're not exactly fighting-ready here. Maybe this is something you need to call your famous Red Robin for."

* * *

Smith stood by a crater at the west end's relief center. Though Robin had long since left, his crowd of onlookers remained, growing larger by the minute. They gathered around the flag pole erected on the center's administrative structure, and stared upward in collective awe. Smith stared as well, but with a heavy expression set in his wrinkles. 

Superboy hung from the top of the pole by his tattered uniform. His head lolled against his chest, which was bare. Precision scorch marks had drawn into his bruised flesh the stylized silhouette of a bird. The brand stood out red and raw against his pale, waxen skin.

Numbly, Smith raised the radio to his mouth again, and answered, "I'm not sure this is something he should handle."

**To Be Continued**


	37. Red Robin: Power

* * *

**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_By Cyberwraith9_

* * *

**Red Robin**: _Power_

Cyborg stormed out of the Tower and into the midst of the camp. Beast Boy loped behind him, hard-pressed to keep up. Together, they marched to the girls' tent, which Cyborg opened without preamble.

"Wake up," he barked.

Bleary Starfire roused first, sitting up with her zipped sleeping bag wrapped around her. She appeared as a purple caterpillar with a beautiful face and bed head as she sleepily asked, "Cyborg? What is the time?"

Quiet rage furrowed his features. He looked years older than he had only hours ago. "Get dressed and ready," he said.

Starfire extricated her arms from the bag and reached to the slumbering Raven at her side. Pulling Raven's earplugs, she echoed Cyborg's command, to which the sorceress grumbled and removed her sleep mask. Then Starfire looked past Raven to where a comatose Tek lay sprawled against the back of the tent. Starfire asked Cyborg, "Shall I—?"

"Leave her. Just you and Raven."

Cyborg zipped their tent shut and waited impatiently for them to exit. Through the rustle of clothing and Beast Boy's attempts at conversation, he stared back at the city in silence. Guilt and anger warred behind his glare for control, though he knew that neither emotion would help him in the coming hours.

After an unbearable thirty seconds, Raven and Starfire squeezed out of the tent dressed in their rumpled uniforms. Yawns struck their mouths in near perfect synchronization. "What now? Is the Puppet King stealing someone's box lunch?" Raven asked.

Cyborg struck her dumb with two words. "It's Robin. Smith just called. Robin and Superboy had a major brawl downtown. It didn't end well for Superboy. They just pulled him off of a flagpole with serious burns and contusions."

"Will he—?" Starfire began.

"He's being taken to S.T.A.R. Labs for treatment," said Cyborg.

"Why would—?"

"We don't know," he said. "Nobody knows who started the fight. But we have dozens of eyewitnesses that say Robin sure as hell finished it."

One after the other, Beast Boy and Raven calcified their expressions to match Cyborg's. Only Starfire remained in disbelief. "Robin would not do this," she murmured. "He would not hurt his friend."

"I think Red X would disagree with you," Raven reminded her.

"So would Red Robin," said Cyborg. "We're mobilizing now, y'all. We're taking care of this tonight."

The mismatched pair to his left nodded their silent agreement, and then started toward the shore. Cyborg turned to follow when he noticed that Starfire hadn't budged. She stood frozen, staring into nothing, her lips pursed with confusion. At Cyborg's questioning look, she said, "This cannot be Robin. It cannot. Robin takes things too far, but he does not hurt his friends. Not like this. Robin is not like this."

"He _is_ hurting people, Kory," he said, and rested a hand on her shoulder. "Whatever his reason, he's crossed a line. And we haven't done anything until now because he's one of us."

Her voice cracked. "But surely someone else…the Justice League, or…?"

"He's one of us," Cyborg said again, slowly. "This is…this is something we have to do ourselves. Something we owe him. Something…" Closing his eye, he finally admitted, "It's something we've owed him from the moment he did wrong by us."

Starfire would not be swayed. "No. We cannot…"

With aching tenderness Cyborg squeezed her shoulder. Then he stepped back, knowing full well that she would not, could not, follow him. "We don't have a choice anymore, Kory. And I'm sorry for that."

He left Starfire standing in the shadow of their husk of a home. As he, Beast Boy, and Raven vanished into the ether, Starfire gazed out at the city, and wondered how so much could go so wrong so quickly. "Robin would not do this," she repeated to herself over and over, becoming less convinced with each repetition. "Robin would not do this."

Then, with a glimmer of realization, she stopped and mulled over her words. She tasted them slowly, savoring them in a new light. "Robin would not do this," she drawled.

* * *

Robin felt good. 

When Superboy had defied him, he still felt regret. But more than that, he felt right. Raw righteousness filled each blow he meted out for justice. It lifted him to new heights. His symbiote—his partner—took his sense of justice and turned it into power. Power that filled a void he never knew. Power that made him whole.

He patrolled the streets atop that sense of justice. Scarlet light shimmered on the buildings wherever he flew, sending those few people still outside scurrying into their shelters. So much the better. It was no longer safe for people to walk the streets, not until he made it safe again.

Then he heard a sound that had become a rarity in Jump City. A motor rumbled around the corner. Curious, Robin dropped to street level, and came face to face with the angled windshield of the CUTTER.

Robin narrowed his scowl, his gaze peering past the dense alloys of the tank to find a single occupant in the driver's seat. "Cyborg," he said to the idling tank, "there's a curfew in place. Take your toys back to the island."

The forward turret atop the CUTTER swung around. Its double barrels rested their aim squarely on Robin.

Robin smirked. Apparently this night was destined to become one long contest for dominance. Honestly, he had expected something like this, but after a greater buildup. But he wasn't about to complain. Out of respect for their former friendship, he said, "Victor, don't be stupid. This will only end one way. So turn around and save yourself the embarrassment."

The moment stretched on. Then the CUTTER slowly backed away, its treads crunching against the perpetual carpet of flotsam strewn through the ailing city. Robin smirked again. Then his expression fell at the flash of the turret, which was the only warning he received before burning force enveloped him and threw him down into the sewers.

* * *

Cyborg lifted his thumb from the trigger and glowered into the spray of pavement into which Robin had vanished. The wireless link connecting him to the CUTTER let him shift into reverse and activate its other weapons hands-free while he tapped his communicator. "I found him. Thirty-Seventh Street." 

_"On our way. Don't take him on without us,"_ Raven's voice answered.

"No chance of that. Come in with guns blazing. Out." The CUTTER kicked up a dusty cloud as it backpedaled down the street. Cyborg smashed the brake, locking the tank's treads at the end of the block. Then he waited.

He gritted his teeth. That first shot had been the hardest he had ever made. He only hoped it would get easier. A clattering drew his gaze to the yoke. His hands shook. He gripped the yoke harder, cracking its plastic.

The gaps in the street flashed red. Robin exploded out of the pavement. He hurtled at the CUTTER with blazing fists. Cyborg punched the throttle forward and met Robin's charge with plasma blasts from the CUTTER's turrets. Robin dodged high, just as Cyborg predicted. The glowing teen flew into Cyborg's crosshairs, which directed the missile racks that sprang from the tank's sides. A wave of explosions bounced Robin from one end of the sky to the other.

Cyborg fired until the missile racks emptied. Then he scanned the smoky haze. Robin was nowhere overhead. Instead, Cyborg found him when the windshield began to glow and melt beneath a scarlet onslaught. Hastily, he grabbed a thick cable he had propped in the navigator seat and plugged it into his chest.

The windshield ran like melting butter under Robin's hands as he parted it with a gesture. "I didn't think you were this stupid, Vic," he called into the widening hole. "Maybe this is just a cry for—"

When Robin breached the CUTTER, he saw Cyborg standing on the other side. A sonic cannon sat leveled at Robin's nose, with Cyborg's glare behind it for aim. A glowing cable dangled from Cyborg's chest, throbbing with the same power that shone in Cyborg's cannon. Blue sonic energy enveloped Robin's head, louder and more powerful than anything Cyborg had ever produced. Every molecule in Robin's head shook as he tumbled back and struck the ground hard.

Cyborg climbed out the windshield and stood on the CUTTER's nose. The cable snaked after him as he jumped to the ground. "I'm sorry, Robin," he said.

The after-resonance in Robin's ears made Cyborg's words mere whispers in the din. Robin rolled over and shouted, "Sorry for betraying me?"

Another sonic blast struck Robin in the chest and drove him through the pavement. He grinded to a halt with a pile of broken street behind him. His scream was lost in the shrieking sonic. Cyborg approached until his cable drew taut. He kept his beam centered on the writhing renegade. "I'm sorry I didn't realize sooner, man," shouted Cyborg. "You need help."

Pencil-thin beams shot from the blue sonic mess and sliced through Cyborg's cable. Separated form the CUTTER's power, the cannon lost its advantage. Its stream shrank into a mere trickle by comparison. Robin forded the stream to its source, and stood before Cyborg. The sonic cannon hardly made him quake.

"Looks like you're the one who needs help," Robin sneered.

As Cyborg ceased his cannoning, an impossible blackness blossomed in his armor from which Raven erupted. Ribbons of ether trailed from her fingers. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" she cried, and struck Robin with a pile driver of pure thought. Robin flew back, leaving Raven time to turn to Cyborg and remark, "You couldn't talk him down?"

"He tore open my tank," he said.

"So, 'no,' then."

Cyborg knocked her aside and took the full force of Robin's retaliation. Red bolts hammered his armor, smashing him back into the CUTTER's grille. Raven saw Robin streaking at her in a flash of red. She pulled her soul-self around her in time to ward against his fiery punch. The force of the blow rattled her inside and out.

Cringing, Raven tried to gather her focus. "Robin," she said, gasping as his next punch struck her bubble, "snap out of it. Even you have to see—"

"The only thing I see is a poor taste in teammates," Robin shot back. The bubble shattered beneath his fist. Raven cried at the psychic backlash. Then she yelped as Robin's grasp twisted her cloak. He drew their faces together and shouted, "You people were the worst mistake of my life. I should have known I couldn't trust any of your kind."

A green leopard pounced on Robin, knocking him away from Raven. Robin fell on his back and kept the snarling cat at bay with one hand. The cat shrank back into a gangly boy, who crouched on Robin's chest with a pleading expression. "Dude, this is nuts," Beast Boy simpered. "You can't seriously think—"

Robin batted Beast Boy off. He snarled and stood to watch Cyborg catch Beast Boy. Cyborg set the changeling down, and then stood with Raven against Robin's glare. "You people are pathetic," spat Robin.

"Even you knew where to draw a line, Robin," Cyborg said. "What you did to Control Freak and Jonny Rancid was way out of line. But what you did to Superboy…"

Beast Boy stood tall, and hoped that no one could hear the terror in his voice when he said, "You're the reason we're a team."

Raven looked into Robin, and blinked. She had only seen anger like this once before, and the sight of it in him made her knees buckle. "You're out of control. You need help. You need to stop."

The light masking Robin's eyes flared. "Pathetic," he said again. "You people weren't a team. You were a means to an end. I've outgrown you."

They scattered at Robin's charge, which tore the street apart. He pulled his fist out of the ground and blasted Raven through a lamppost. A burst from his eyes chased a green kangaroo back. Then he followed a sonic blast back to its origin and grabbed the cannon. A simple twist tore the aperture from Cyborg's arm.

Cyborg cried out and clutched his sparking stump. Red light washed his shadow away. He looked up into the bolt gathering in Robin's palm. "You're the weakest of us all, Cyborg," Robin told him. "You're a little boy trapped inside a monster. Desperate for anyone's acceptance. Desperate for anyone who needs you more than they want to get rid of you."

A green lynx leapt on Robin's back and latched on with its claws. The lynx gnawed on Robin's head to no effect. Robin took off like a shot, flying hard and fast, and smashed his back into a building, sandwiching the cat. When he pulled back, a dizzy Beast Boy hung in the building's façade.

"And you. A monster trapped in a little boy." Robin pulled Beast Boy out of the crater by his neck. "You're not fooling anyone, little jester. You aren't human. You're barely an animal."

Beast Boy felt his windpipe clench beneath Robin's grip. His vertebrae creaked as his vision tunneled. He thought he was losing consciousness until he felt himself slip through Robin's fingers and reappear at Raven's side half a block away.

Wisps of her soul trailed off his body. He shivered from the unearthly cold and then again at her touch. "Thanks for the 'port," he wheezed.

"Don't talk." Raven reached for his bruised throat with glowing hands.

She jerked back as Robin slammed into Beast Boy. Beast Boy screamed as his lower half cracked into new angles beneath Robin's thunderous landing. He rolled up and clutched his legs, sobbing, blinded with pain as Robin stepped off him to round on Raven.

"You," Robin spat at her.

Raven's soul-self wrapped around Robin, cocooning him from shoulder to toe. With a chant of her incantation, Raven willed the cocoon to contract. She held Robin in the air and crushed the fight out of him. His face grew red with blood and rage. "This is where you tell me something about myself?" she said snidely, fighting his strength with her concentration, which struggled with Beast Boy's agonized screams. "Go ahead. Tell me that I'm lonely, and I desperately want to be loved."

The soul-self around Robin's arms began to crack. He flexed. He strained. The cracks grew. "No," he grunted. "We both know you hate everyone, your friends included."

Red beams shot from Robin's eyes and hammered Raven's chest. She tumbled back, smoldering, and beat the flames from her uniform. Smoke stung her eyes as her skin bubbled around the raw, throbbing burn between her breasts. Had it been deeper, the blast would have cooked her lungs.

With a roar, Robin burst from the soul cocoon. He floated upon her with brimming fists of light. "You're just another girl rebelling against daddy. Doing good just to spit on the family legacy." At her astonished horror, he grinned. "Was I not supposed to know that?"

His fists erupted. Raven pushed a soul shield against Robin's beams. The shield began to buckle immediately. Desperately, she looked around, and saw Beast Boy collapsed in pain. "Beast Boy!" she screamed.

Somehow, Beast Boy heard her, for he rolled over, and witnessed Robin advancing on her shield behind a continuous stream of scarlet death. Tears blurred his vision. Pain wracked his throat. He tried to call back, but his voice erupted in another scream.

Raven sweated at the waves of heat rolling off the inside of her shield. Her burn throbbed. Her concentration waned against the onslaught. Crushing shut her eyes, she yelled, "You can't have broken legs, you idiot! You're a shapeshifter! Quit screwing around and help me!"

Her soul shield evaporated. Red light enveloped her. Raven screamed as the unbearable heat tore through her. Black flakes peeled away. Skin or cloth, she didn't know. Pain consumed her inside and out until her mind shut down in a desperate bid to preserve her sanity.

Robin caught the collapsing sorceress by the scrap of uniform still clinging to her raw skin. His eyes flared, smoldering a point between her eyes. "Time to send you home to daddy," he said.

Cloven hooves kicked Robin far away from Raven. Before he could recover, he was tackled by a green creature unlike any he had ever seen. The creature's tail was a serpent that plunged its dagger fangs into Robin's side. Hooves pinned Robin's arms to the ground as the creature's leonine mouth bathed him in an ear-splitting roar. "**Get** **away!**" the creature snarled.

The green creature belched fire full in Robin's face. Its tail gouged a poisoned arc in Robin's chest. For the first time in a long while, Robin felt pain. Mortal pain. It filled every corner of his steely heart with rage. Roaring back, Robin grabbed the ugly chimera by its hooves and threw it as hard as he could. The creature disappeared like a bullet through the nearest building, and did not return.

Robin staggered to his feet. As he wiped the char from his face, he felt a gnat buzz against the back of his head. He turned and saw Cyborg, who cradled his remaining hand. Quick, precise, Robin struck Cyborg again and again, denting his armor, breaking his circuits, until Cyborg fell to his knees, bleeding sparks and coughing hemotrolium.

"If you Titans can't handle the new order of things, then there's no room for you in this city anymore," Robin decreed.

Cyborg glared up at Robin. "Judge, jury, and executioner, all rolled into one," he spat contemptuously.

His hand poised to finish the job, Robin said, "This city needs justice."

"This city does not need your justice." Both foes looked up. Starfire stood on the air overhead. She glared down at Robin, her eyes a glowing mask reminiscent of Robin's, her arms folded across her chest.

Robin shoved Cyborg aside and levitated to her. The air around them shimmered with power, shifting back and forth, as though their respective angers were pushing against each other. "What happens now, Kory? You beg me to stop? You tell me how much you need me?" he asked mockingly. The air around him flooded with his rage, outshining hers in scarlet brilliance. "Are you going to cry?"

Starfire remained silent. Her lavender uniform smoked beneath Robin's spiteful aura. If it hurt, she did not react.

"You disgust me. From the moment you landed, I've done nothing but carry you. I did everything for you. I taught you to speak! And the one time I needed you, you turned on me. You betrayed me!"

"I am sorry you feel that way," she said.

"Sorry? Sorry doesn't…" His aura flared as rage choked his voice. Cyborg below flinched and shielded his eyes, but Starfire didn't blink. "Sorry buys you nothing, girl. Your fate will be the same as theirs," snarled Robin.

"If that is how you feel…"

Robin laughed derisively in her face. "Why are you even here?" he taunted.

Her punch drove Robin through an abandoned office building. He plowed through brick, mortar, wood, plaster, steel, and glass. When he exited the other side amidst a spray of building, Starfire was waiting for him, floating, her arms folded once more as though she had never moved.

"I want my Robin back," she said.

Starfire ducked his punch and hammered his kidney. The blow stunned Robin, leaving him helpless against a kick that doubled him over. She rested her heels on his heaving back and shoved him ten stories with a single push. Her starbolts met him on the ground, blossoming in a blast that shook the neighborhood.

Debris rattled around Robin as he pulled himself out of the street. He tasted copper, and spat red. Then he glared at the lilac speck hovering high above him. A low growl bit into his shout: "How dare you?"

A scarlet explosion sent Robin hurtling into the sky. Cyborg rounded the corner in time to catch the explosion and stumble back. The metal Titan watched as red and green collided over the city. Colors danced and clashed, disappearing from his view for a more distant part of the horizon. Groaning, Cyborg rose on shaky legs. He started to follow, but an ashen form lying still in the street made him reconsider.

He lurched to Raven and cradled her in his stubbed arm. His remaining hand rapped her cheek as lightly as he could manage. Her skin glistened with blistering burns where her uniform had been scorched off. She awoke with a heave that arched her back. Cyborg laid her gently on the rubble while she screamed with her eyes and bit her cracked lip.

It was another minute before she could speak again. "I'm okay," she rasped. Her words shook. Cyborg could hear the agony bottled behind them. It was nothing short of a miracle that she stood and tore away the remainder of her cloak. "What happened?" she asked.

"Starfire happened. She looked like she was holding her own." Cyborg looked up in hope, but saw only a smoky sky.

"Where's Beast Boy?"

Cyborg didn't know. Ignoring her protests, he picked her up and carried her. They tracked Beast Boy's path three blocks until they found him facedown in a trench of his own making. Raven pointedly extracted herself from Cyborg's arms and helped him roll Beast Boy. Even she couldn't help but gasp at the sight of his face.

"Buh," Beast Boy slurred through swollen lips. Bloody mucus ribboned from the pancake his nose had become. Bruising seeped beneath his skin and dribbled from a grimy cut that spanned his forehead. His eyes were dilated and disjointed.

A quick scan confirmed Cyborg's fears. "He's got a concussion," Cyborg said. Raven's glowing hands were halfway to Beast Boy's forehead already. He knocked her healing touch aside, and said, "Can you heal him and still keep going? Would either of you be ready to fight?"

Raven hesitated. She could feel Beast Boy's pain boiling against her psychic defenses. To heal him, she would have to open herself and accept his pain in full. She would feel as concussed as he did now. "No," she admitted.

"Then don't," Cyborg said. "He'll live, and I need you."

"But—"

Cyborg scooped up Beast Boy, who stared groggily into his friend's cracked eye. Seeing firsthand what Robin had become, what he was willing to do, Cyborg knew they had only one choice left. "Let's get moving. This isn't over yet," he said.

* * *

"You ungrateful little **nothing**!" Robin shouted. He dove upon Starfire and knocked her through a cloud. Jump City spiraled beneath them as they grappled with burning hands. Their auras blended into a crackling yellow that flashed like lightning in the overcast sky. "Child! Weakling! You can't match me!" 

Starfire glared into the visage of the horrible creature who dared to wear that face. His taunts did nothing but fuel the fire inside her. She lashed out and struck his chin, turning away his blazing eyes. She struck again, and felt the bones of her hands crack.

Her body hurt. Her skin burned. Her innards grew cold as she took their fire and poured it into the creature's ugly face. Let it hurt. Let it burn. She refused to be bested. She was Koriand'r of Tamaran, and she fought for her heart. Everything else was just noise.

Robin grew stronger with every blow. His body weakened, but his rage burgeoned. His chest swelled, pushing back the ribs she cracked beneath her heel. His hands filled with seething hate, which he rained upon her. "I'm stronger than you! I'm stronger than all of you!" he screamed.

A scarlet bolt struck Starfire's eyes. Her lashes crumbled as she reeled, blind. A burning punch struck her middle, branding Robin's knuckles into her midriff. Roaring, she threw back her head and summoned a wave of righteous fury that painted the sky green.

He rode the wave, buffered by his scarlet aura. "Jealous little speck," he spat. "You sit in your ivory tower with the power of a god, looking down on mortals like me. Well, now I have the power. I have more power than you could ever dream of, and I don't need you anymore!"

His eyes lit with that power. Starfire caught the beams with glowing hands. Her fury struggled to counter his, but her voice remained apart from the fight. "Give me back my beloved!"

Martial arts met Tamaranian training. The sky shook. Blows came too quickly for Starfire to follow. Reaction guided her hands and feet in the deadly dance. She felt herself weaken, but pushed harder. Her boot cut his cheek. His elbow shattered her collarbone. Her fingers scorched the symbol from his chest. His glare cut her hair in half, narrowly missing her neck.

Starfire trapped Robin in a bear hug and tilted down. Their combined speed hurled them toward the city. Yellow sparks showered from their clashing auras. It was all Starfire could do to contain his struggle as she guided them through a long-abandoned warehouse. The building mushroomed and collapsed as they punched through the ground to the complex below.

Slade's lair quaked at their landing. Rusty cogs fell from the walls. A carpet of chains leapt and fell, ringing against the dusty floor. Once of the tremendous screens shook from its housing and collapsed. It crushed the upper deck in a tumultuous song of rending metal. Then, silence.

Robin rose first. His uniform hung in tatters stained with his own blood. He pulled himself out of the floor and grasped the ginger hair at his feet. Starfire cried as he yanked her head up and caught her by the throat. "Your Robin!" he snarled, shaking her. "Your Robin! Like an infant mewling for its toy. You don't own me."

He threw her through the central platform. Its consoles crunched at her passing. Starfire came to rest on the other side, covered in cuts, with silicon bits stuck in her hair. Robin stalked across the ruined platform. He plucked its throne with one hand along the way. The heavy chair swung in his grasp and belted Starfire in the face.

"You costumed freaks ruined my life!" he yelled between blows. The throne bent each time he struck Starfire. "You can't anymore! I have the power! I decide! Me!"

He rolled her over with his boot. Blood slicked her swollen face and pooled on the floor from a dozen cuts. It matted her hair and dribbled from her lips. But her eyes were hard and bright. They glared through Robin as he let the throne drop. His blood dripped from his chin to join hers. Hands shaking, he drew a killing stroke between his palms.

"I'm not yours. I'm mine," he said, cupping the deadly glow.

An engine roared at the mouth of the lair. With a flash of headlights, the CUTTER nosed over the cusp of the hole and plummeted. The lair quaked again as the CUTTER crumpled and thumped onto its treads. Robin's bolt split between his hands to cover Cyborg and Raven staggering out the melted windshield.

Cyborg faltered and held up his stub against the imposing glow of Robin's bolts. "Don't make me do this, man," he pleaded one last time.

Robin laughed once, a dark and ugly laugh that chilled Cyborg. "Like you could stop me."

One glance from him told Raven everything she needed to know before Cyborg lunged at Robin. His broken sonic cannon smashed against Robin's bare chest. Robin laughingly let him come. The laughter stopped when the sum total of Cyborg's power cell poured through the exposed circuitry in the cannon.

Electricity arced across Robin's scream. He tried to pull away, but Cyborg persisted. He tore whatever of Cyborg he could reach, but Cyborg would not let go. The Titan grappled Robin and held on with everything he had left as everything else poured out his broken circuits. Static filled Cyborg's vision and hummed in his ears. "Raven, NOW!" he bellowed. His implants dimmed, and his eye winked out.

Robin tore free from Cyborg's dead grasp, wrenching the arm clean from its socket. The remnants of the power cell danced in Robin's oozing wounds. His vision refocused on Raven, who limped toward him with hands aglow and face aghast. Static sparked from the finger he jabbed at her. "You see?" he bellowed. "You can't stop me! Nobody can!"

Raven paused. Robin could not know of the concentration she gathered inside his left ventricle. With a single thought, she could expand that concentration into a soul-self bubble the size of a shooter marble that would tear his heart apart, killing him in seconds. She hesitated. The arcane in her eyes faded into twilight despair.

"Please," she said. Tears cut twin trails through the grime on her cheeks. She cried not because she could not kill him, but because she knew she would. So she begged him in a soft voice, "Please stop."

Scarlet death gathered in Robin's eyes, irradiating the face of her friend with monstrous light. "Too little," he told her darkly, "too la—"

Green fire erupted from his chest. Robin arched and howled as Starfire pressed her hand to his back and emptied herself. Her fire lanced across the room, carrying with it a small, black shape that bounced off the wall and vanished amidst the debris. Starfire's scream joined Robin's for one final, blinding wave of emerald light. Then they collapsed together.

The fight's crescendo drew a dizzy Beast Boy out of the CUTTER's wreckage. He staggered, fell, and picked himself off the nose of the tank. Raven was already across the room. He watched her pull Robin and Starfire apart. Questions bounced around the inside of his skull, but they couldn't find their way through the concussive haze. He summed his questions instead with, "Raven?"

She looked upon the pair with growing horror. Robin's chest sported a hole through which she could pass her fist. Wheezing gasps bubbled in his lips and in the hole. His body spasmed violently in its final seconds. Starfire, conversely, lay upon the floor as stilly as a tomb. Her eyes were wide and blank, and hauntingly white. Blood pooled rapidly beneath them both. Raven knew she could only heal one of them.

"Garfield," she shouted, "call for help."

She held her breath, and chose.

**To Be Continued

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Don't expect the next chapter as soon as this one. Even I don't know how it came this quickly. And remember to leave a review if you liked or hated it.


	38. Red Robin: Departed

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**Teen Titans  
Avatar**

_By Cyberwraith9_

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**Red Robin**: _Departed_

Darkness broke for a stark, white ceiling and the steady pip of machinery in tune to a heartbeat. Pain followed. Dull, medicated agony permeated every cell, making the body a singular ache. A cottony haze smothered all thought. And beneath all of that, a sharp void tugged at everything he was, threatening to pull him inside out. He fell endlessly through that void, heavy, and sick, and terrifyingly mortal.

He tried lifting his head. It weighted a hundred pounds. A gentle hand pushed upon his forehead to quell his effort. The hand belonged to a dark blur in a lab coat that hovered above him. "Can you hear me?" it asked in a soft, familiar, feminine voice.

"Doctor…Brown?"

The blur smiled as it coalesced into an attractive doctor with long, braided hair and glasses. "I'm glad I'm so memorable. Try not to move. The important thing is that you're safe here. Do you understand?"

"…yes. Hard to think…"

"I should imagine so, young man. You had a very bad day. And the three days after that haven't been much better." She raised a hypo and rapped it with her finger. "You need to rest. Real rest, not a coma. I'm going to give you something."

"No…"

Something cold rushed into his arm. The ache of his body subsided. The blur above him faded. Only the void remained. He struggled to hold on, using all of his focus to cling to a single thought. "Where is…?" he whispered.

His last sight was the loss of Doctor Brown's smile. Her touch returned to his numbing face. "Later," she promised.

Darkness swallowed Robin once more.

* * *

"—and then Raven buttoned you up. The healing spell must have tapped out her mojo reservoir, 'cause she went coma-tonic on top of you right after. I called for help on every frequency I could remember before I passed out." 

Beast Boy scratched his head, careful of the bandaging wrapped there. He sat at Robin's bedside in the stark, white room. A flimsy hospital gown identical to Robin's kept him modest. The Teen Wonder hadn't moved an inch since the beginning of Beast Boy's story. Not one to be wasteful, Beast Boy reached over and stole the fruit cup from Robin's otherwise untouched tray of food.

Robin didn't seem to mind. He stared through the tray, looking somewhere far beyond, and asked in a hollow voice, "So the police brought us here?"

He nodded, and then ate the fruit cup without utensil or civility. Wiping the syrup from his chin, he said, "S.T.A.R. Labs took us in. They've been working around the clock to put all of us back together again."

Robin's bare eyes lifted from the tray. "The others…?"

Beast Boy squirmed in his seat and stammered the start of a reply. The opening door rescued him, to which he failed to hide his relief. "Hey, what's up, Doc?" he chimed.

"At some point, you're going to have to think of another joke," Doctor Brown said. She closed the door behind her. Then she ran through her typical examination of Robin, which the Bedridden Wonder accepted numbly as he had come to over the last two days. Finally, she put aside her icy attentions and plucked the chart off the end of his bed. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

The question was another fare he had come to expect from her since awakening. He felt awful, and sick with drugs that kept his body weak and his mind fuzzy. She knew he felt awful. He knew that she knew how he felt. At this point, everyone knew how he felt, and so he countered with his own question. "What happened?"

Brown rifled through the clipboard's pages. "We can get to that later. I'd like to—"

"You've taken every sample, and you've run every test," Robin said testily. He rubbed his scalp, which they'd shaved bare to better scan beneath it. "It feels like you've spread half of me around the Labs in tiny little test tubes by now. I'm sick of being poked and prodded. Tell me what happened to me."

Her eyebrow quirked. "You need rest. I don't—"

"**WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?**"

The metal edges of his bed rattled beneath his grip. Beast Boy's chair screeched against the floor as he jumped back. Doctor Brown lowered her brow, examining Robin with a cool look. Slowly, Robin released the railing, and took a deep breath. When he had calmed, Brown asked, "How much do you already know? Because we had hoped to spare you the gorier details until you were ready."

Both Robin and his doctor tossed dirty looks at Beast Boy for completely opposite reasons. As Beast Boy shrank back, Robin said, "I don't have any memory loss. I remember everything: the power, the fight the…I remember everything." His voice trailed off heavily. Then, with another bracing breath, he said, "Beast Boy told me what happened after I lost consciousness. I need to know what happened to me. Why did I—?"

Doctor Brown silenced him with a raised hand. She studied him intently, looking into his hard blue eyes for the first time. She had seen them masked, and she had seen them glazed. Until now, she had never seen them desperate.

She sat down at his bedside and pulled a small remote off the end of the bed. "Since you neglected to return for any follow-ups to your last visit, much of what we've gleaned is retrospective and incomplete. Let me show you on the hologram projector."

Beast Boy brought his chair back to the bed. He goggled the remote in Brown's hand. "My room doesn't even have a TV, and Robin gets a holo-projector?"

"No." She shot Beast Boy a wry look and thumbed the remote. Robin's bed bent upward, raising him until he sat at eye level with her. "And that, by the way, is how you tell a joke. You may wish to take notes." She flipped through her chart, and then presented Robin with a poignant picture. "This is your brain."

Robin stared at the cross-section of his skull, the cumulative result of more tests than he could count. He rubbed his shaved scalp and shivered at the memory of cold sensors and prying eyes. "Okay," he said expectantly.

She pointed to sections of the diagram that held no immediate importance for Robin. "You'll notice the state of your amygdalae. Even though it's faded since the removal of the creature, your amygdalae's activity well above normal. We can only assume that it was even higher while the creature was connected. What this essentially means is that, whatever you felt, you felt it more. You were acting as one tremendously raw nerve."

"But I wasn't," Robin insisted. "I felt normal, mostly. Just…during the last few weeks, with so much happening, I've been…"

"Angry?" murmured Beast Boy.

Robin scowled at him as Brown continued, "Yes, well, I'm hardly surprised. You'll recall the increased adrenaline production I warned you about last time? When they brought you in, your blood tested positive with enough adrenaline to give a bull elephant cardiac arrest. It's a wonder you could think at all."

His scowl fell into his lap. He combed the fuzzy interior of his thoughts for any hint of this biochemical manipulation of which Brown spoke. "What does this all mean?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah," said Beast Boy, "Is ultra-Robin gonna come back?" His fearful question caught the edge of Robin's glance, and so he nervously added, "Uh, 'cause that would be awesome…"

Brown shook her head. "Without the creature's continued influence, your own biology is reasserting itself. In another few days, you should be your normal self again, more or less."

"More or less?" Beast Boy asked when Robin didn't.

She hesitated. Taking back the chart, she set it aside, and then rested her hand on Robin's. "The abnormal cellular organelles are being absorbed without problem. The macro-biological changes you experienced, on the other hand…" She paused. "It appears to be a fairly painful reversion process. That's why we've got you on a morphine drip. It's still too early to tell how much, if any, of your biology will require—"

"I want to see them," Robin said. His shoulders sat slumped, and his head drooped under its own weight, but his eyes burned with demand. "I need to see them," he said.

Protest welled in Brown's throat. It died there, too, as she looked upon Robin's stony silence. She traded glances with Beast Boy, who nodded at her unspoken question. "I'll have an orderly come by and rig a wheelchair for you, provided that you promise not to exert yourself, and that you stick with your escort."

With a rakish salute, Beast Boy said, "No problem, Doc. I'll keep his chair riding smooth, and I'll steer clear of the highways to avoid that nasty cross-lab rush hour traffic."

She shook her head as she left the room. Then she paused in the door. Looking back, she called to Robin, "This wasn't your fault. If anyone is to blame, it's me. Your neurochemistry precluded any possibility of rational decision-making, and I should have realized that. I should have been more insistent that you come in for further examination. I…I'm sorry."

When Robin would not reply, Brown cast a last look at Beast Boy, burdening the young shapeshifter with her hopes, and then left the boys to heal.

* * *

One change of venue later, Beast Boy wheeled Robin down the hall in a chair fitted with bags that all fed into Robin's IV. His navigator pushed from behind and leaned to talk directly in Robin's ear. Robin stared down and ahead, and let Beast Boy talk without response. Nor did he react to the slightly alarmed looks he received from the passing lab coats. 

"Don't mind them," Beast Boy told him after one particularly young scientist edged around Robin's wheelchair. "They're just a little freaked to see any of us up and about. I mean, they thought I would have permanent brain damage, and I was awake later that day. Guess I heal quicker than they thought. Just another advantage of being green and beautiful, right?"

_Beast Boy screamed as his lower half cracked into new angles beneath Robin's thunderous landing. He rolled up and clutched his legs, sobbing, blinded with pain…_

Robin grunted.

Beast Boy's chatter faltered a moment. "Dude, if you aren't feeling up for this, we could head back to your room and order in for some more fruit cups. Maybe find a TV. S.T.A.R. Labs probably gets channels we've never even heard of. Have you seen the satellite dish they've got on the roof?"

"Who's first?" Robin asked softly.

They slowed outside a door in the medical wing. "I guess that would be Raven. They've got her in here," Beast Boy said reluctantly, and pushed Robin in.

The room was barer than Robin's. It contained no medical equipment of any kind, just a bed set far away from cracked windows. Raven lay upon the bed atop its sheets. She still wore the tattered remains of her uniform. No one could remove it; a tight cocoon of translucent blackness clung to the contours of her body. The cocoon pulsed and throbbed nigh imperceptibly and exuded a faint chill.

_Her soul shield evaporated. Red light enveloped her. Raven screamed as the unbearable heat tore through her. Black flakes peeled away._

Beast Boy stopped them at a respectful distance. "I visit her every day," Beast Boy said to the silent room. "Usually don't stay long, though."

"Can she hear you?" Robin murmured, spellbound by the soul-self surrounding her.

Beast Boy nodded. "She totally can. I'm sure of it. After about ten minutes, it gets so cold in here that I have to leave. But I always come back whether she likes it or not. Hear that, Raven?" he asked the immobile sorceress, "You're stuck with me."

Robin watched Raven's eyes flutter. His stomach froze into a heavy lump. "You never sensed anything," he whispered to her, and to himself. His skin prickled. His eyes stung.

Steam whistled out of Beast Boy's nose. He tasted the cold, dry air, and said, "Whoops. Time to go. See you tomorrow, Raven," he called back as he wheeled Robin out.

The unlikely duo traversed the halls of S.T.A.R. Labs. Beast Boy resumed his one-sided chat with Robin, elucidating on how he was determined to wake Raven with a laugh. His prattle rolled off Robin's bare scalp to no effect. Eventually, Beast Boy drew silent as they neared a glass observation window connected to a clean room.

"They won't let me in to visit Vic yet," he explained. "He took too much damage in the fight. They're giving him a complete rebuild."

_Cyborg took the full force of Robin's retaliation. Red bolts hammered his armor, smashing him back into the CUTTER's grille._

No one component of Cyborg remained recognizable. The room beyond the glass had tables and racks and rigs and arrays, all of which were covered in damaged technology. A large, cylindrical tank of greenish liquid sat in the middle of the room. Disquieting shapes bobbed in the liquid, separated by plastic barriers. A second, smaller tank sat on a table near the window. Robin squinted to see its contents. He choked back vomit when he recognized the halved face of Victor Stone inside. Metal ports sat unused at the bottom of Victor's neck and in the concave recess of his head, which had been stripped of its implants.

Beast Boy stared sullenly at the remaining organics of Cyborg's head. "They're working on a way to wake his head up without, y'know, driving him bonkers. They want his input on the new body."

They didn't linger at the door. Robin still said nothing as they left Cyborg behind. Only when he noticed them returning to the medical wing did he say, "Where are you taking me?"

"It's been a rough day, and I promised Doc Brown…hey, Doc Brown! I just now got that. 'Great Scott, Marty!' Heh."

"Gar…"

"I promised I wouldn't get you riled up, dude," Beast Boy whined. "Hey, let's go visit Superboy instead. He's up and about. Man, is he funny. And he's got the coolest story about these cloned newspaper boys."

When they kept rolling, Robin insisted, "I need to see her, Gar."

_Blood slicked Starfire's swollen face and pooled on the floor from a dozen cuts. It matted her hair and dribbled from her lips. But her eyes were hard and bright._

Then he drew a deep breath, and used a word he had never spoken before to Beast Boy, a word that made the commanding Gotham Knight feel small. "Please," he said. "Please let me see her."

The reluctant wheelchair slowed. Then it stopped. Some small, sickly part of Robin buried deep beneath the chemical numb felt a stab of gratitude for the shapeshifter as they turned around.

Beast Boy muttered, "You so owe me."

* * *

One of the larger labs had been gutted, and its equipment, replaced with every instrument of xenomedicine ever to reach the Earth. A large respirator sat behind the table upon which she laid. Tubes connected to every conceivable part of her body, putting fluids in and taking them out. More machines sat to either side of her, monitoring her, administrating life in chemical doses. 

A large, luminous array hung over the lab, bathing her table in artificial sunlight. The light painted her pale skin a sickly orange and made Robin sweat as Beast Boy wheeled him in. Regardless of the heat, and of the beeping of her induced heartbeat, Robin felt like he had entered a tomb. The sheet covering her bandaged body might as well have been a shroud.

No trace of Beast Boy's grin remained. He stayed behind Robin to hide the tears welling in his eyes. "They tried everything to wake her up," Beast Boy said shakily. "I don't understand it…a lot of big words, and junk, but… They're not sure if there's anything left to wake up. She lost a lot of blood, and there's no donors around, 'cause she's the only…yeah. And the light…when she blasted…blasted you, she, uh…" He wiped his face and swallowed hard. "She was stone cold when they brought her in. They're hoping she'll suck up all this fake sun, and…"

Robin stared long and hard into her disfigured face. He forced his gaze over every cut, every bruise, committing each one to memory. Her eyes remained closed and still. Her hair pooled around her head, stiff and dull.

"Could you give us a minute, Gar?" Robin asked.

Beast Boy stammered softly, "I don't know. I mean, I promised…"

When Robin would not even turn to hear his excuse—while he stared at Starfire without sound, without tear, without so much as a sigh—Beast Boy thought he had finally seen the impossible. The creature in the wheelchair before him was no more Robin than the form laid upon the table was Starfire.

"Sure. Just a minute, though." As Beast Boy left, he paused, remembering something of great importance. He stepped gingerly around Robin to a table beside Starfire, and returned with a small yellow disc that had been left within her arm's reach. "Here," he said, pressing the disc to Robin's hand, "We found this in her uniform. Not sure where she was carrying it, but…"

Robin stared into the reflective yellow disc. It fit snugly in his palm, and had a simple "R" etched across its diameter. Looking up, he stopped Beast Boy with a quick, "Gar." When Beast Boy turned, Robin struggled to find words to put to his thoughts. "You…you haven't said anything to me about…about what I did."

Beast Boy paused at the door. His elfin features slumped in a rare moment of introspection. Then he said, "Did I ever tell you what it was like before I joined up with you guys? My adoptive dad was pretty hard on me. Wanted me to be his little soldier. And my adoptive mom coddled me as much as he hard-assed me. Honestly, it was nice just finding people who would treat me almost normal. I was so glad to finally find some friends."

Robin said nothing

"Well," Beast Boy said with another shrug, "I guess you and me don't really get along, anyway. I mean, I get it: you're terminally serious, and I'm goofy and stupid. But I like it that way. I like being a Titan. I like being your friend. I'll always be your friend, Tim.

When Robin's stare became too much for him, Beast Boy shifted awkwardly. "This is just a really crappy day, dude," Beast Boy said matter-of-factly. "You know that, right? Everybody has 'em. It's nobody's fault. It's just that, since we're super heroes, we have worse bad days than anybody else. Our good days save a lot of people, and our bad days are…really bad. But bad days don't last forever.

The young Titan slipped through the door with a half-sad, half-encouraging look. "Give Kory my love, okay?" he said, and then left Robin alone with his thoughts.

Robin stared after him, partly in shock, largely in guilt. Then he wheeled himself to Starfire's bedside, oblivious to the sweltering heat of her incandescent sunlamp. He watched the mechanical rise and fall of her chest. He listened to the air whistling through her respirator tube. He clasped her hand in his, and felt her clammy skin.

He broke.

Muffled sobs broke against his teeth, which bit his lip to stifle his crying. It was the only restraint Robin could muster as he held Starfire's hand against his cheek. Her skin pulled the heat from his face as though starving for warmth. The IV tube in his arm drew taut as he leaned over her, resting his smooth head against her stomach, and cried out every last ounce of Robin within him, until all that remained was a miserable little boy.

"I didn't want this," Tim whimpered. "I didn't want this. I take it back.

He lifted his head and cupped her chin. The edge of her respirator felt warm on his palm by comparison of her cheek. Tears blurred her face into a hot smear of pale gold and purple. He crushed his eyes shut, forcing himself to look away. "All I wanted to do was make things right. I finally had the power to make things right, Kory. Why did I…? I mean, I would never want to… But I… I did."

Tim's crying waned as he finished his thought. He jerked his hand away from Starfire's icy skin, and pushed his chair away from her. Something ugly and hateful seeped into him, filling the emptiness left by his loss. He looked at her, and finally began to understand why his worthless, no-account criminal of a father had abandoned him. He looked at her, and knew what he had to do.

With no more hesitation, Tim placed the Robin insignia back on Starfire's table. He prayed that, if…when she woke, that she would look upon it and remember something of worth. It was a hope he no longer held for himself. He grasped the IV in his arm.

"Goodbye, Koriand'r," Tim said, and ripped the IV from his skin.

* * *

Beast Boy yanked his hand away from the bandaging on his head when he saw Doctor Brown pushing a wheelchair-bound Superboy down the hall. He wasn't fast enough to spare himself from her stern voice. "Leave those dressings alone, or I'll put you in that full body cast I threatened you with." 

"But it's better," Beast Boy whined, and tugged at the bandage's edge to show her healthy green skin underneath. "Didn't all that science you had prove that I'm a fast healer?"

Superboy rapped the plaster casts covering his hands together. Shaking his hand, he said, "Trust me, Lima Bean, it won't stop her. She'll put you in an iron lung if you're not fast enough."

The beleaguered doctor shook her head as the boys shared an awkward high five. "Just because you think you're better doesn't mean that you are. There could be infections, complications, or you might have brain damage. Admittedly, in your cases, the latter problem requires very particular distinction from your respective baselines."

"But I didn't have any head injury," Superboy protested.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm well aware of that," she assured him before rounding on Beast Boy. "In any case, you're supposed to be watching Robin. That was the deal. Did you lose him?" she asked scornfully.

He held up his hands. "How about a little faith, Doc? Robin's just inside. He needed…" Beast Boy's smile faded. "They needed a minute alone."

Even Superboy's million-dollar grin wavered. "How's he taking it?" he asked Beast Boy.

"Hard. Not as hard as I expected, but hard enough. But I think we can get him through this."

As soon as he said it, Beast Boy felt something cold and wet seeping into his slippers. He looked down and saw a puddle extending from under the door of Starfire's room. The smell of blood drove Beast Boy through the door.

He splashed through a puddle of saline up to Robin's overturned chair. The chair's IV rig lay in pieces next to it. A tinge of blood remained on the needle, which Beast Boy picked up and sniffed. It was the only trace of Robin left in the room.

Brown ran on Beast Boy's heels, with Superboy wheeling behind hers. "What is…? Where is he?" she demanded. "He can't… There's nowhere to go!"

The IV needle twisted numbly between Beast Boy's fingers as he stared through the comatose Starfire, and mumbled, "He left?"

Brown ignored him and ran to the wall, and slammed her hand on a large red button mounted under a "Warning" sign. A klaxon blared through the building, summoning orderlies to the lab. "You don't understand," Brown cried, "We have to find him. His body is undergoing serious restructuring, and…" She trailed off at the young heroes' blank stares. Stamping her heel, she insisted, "His body is changing back! Without medical supervision, the process could kill him!"

Superboy glanced up at the ventilation grate in the ceiling. Only close scrutiny revealed that it had been put back slightly askew. "Sorry, Doc," he said. At her demanding glare, he dropped his eyes, and noted, "Maybe he can't leap tall buildings, but he's still Robin. If he doesn't wanna be found, you're not gonna find him."

"What kind of asinine, macho posturing is this?" she demanded. "Does he think he doesn't need help? That he's better? Why would he just run away?"

Neither Beast Boy nor Superboy could reply. Only the artificial pulse of Starfire's life support answered.

* * *


	39. Epilogue I

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Teen Titans  
Avatar 

_By Cyberwraith9_

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Epilogue I_

Deep in a cavern beneath Titans Tower, a young girl crouched on metal decking and rooted through equipment lockers. Her spine formed a gaunt ridge along her pale, pinched back. A torn, filthy blue jumpsuit clung to her skeletal frame like a second skin. Formerly gawky, her body now bore the scars of starvation and insomnia.

Empty packages flew from the locker where she dug. "Where is it?" she cried. "It has to be here. There has to be something left!"

She kept looking over her shoulder. Though she saw only the strewn contents of the lockers behind her, she knew no relief. The creature stalking her couldn't be seen or heard. And only one thing could keep it away. She needed to keep it away.

A snarl rang between her ears. She clenched her teeth and dug faster. The metal locker's contents emptied in a spray of garbage. Nothing remained. Screaming, she grabbed the locker and tipped it, letting it fall with a resonating crash. She clutched her greasy hair and screamed again. The creature's yowl overpowered hers.

She fell to her knees, cradling her ears as the creature filled her head. Deafening rage drowned out her own sobs. Then, as she collapsed onto her hands, something hard in the strewn garbage pressed into her palm. She snatched without looking, and drew from the garbage a small, black, plastic tube.

With a rejoicing cry, she cracked the tube, tearing away the plastic to free the emergency hypodermic needle inside. Clear liquid swirled in its chamber. She plunged the needle into the crook of her arm with practiced ease and thumbed the needle's plunger. Chemical silence trickled through her veins. She collapsed with a sigh.  
The garbage crinkled beneath her in an impromptu bed as she felt herself slipping away.

Then she shook with a roar from the creature that nearly split her head in twain. The creature bellowed through her, tearing through her haze with a primal need, a terrible yearning for blood and flesh and fight.

It punched her stomach from the inside. She vomited, covering herself and her garbage bed in stinking, empty bile. She clawed at her forehead, tearing furrows into her brow with jagged nails as she dug for the creature. Try as she might, she could not unseat it. The chemical haze no longer kept it caged.

She curled in a fetal ball on the filthy decking and wept, clutching her ears as the creature ran rampant through her.

* * *

Raven gazed upon Starfire lying beneath the array of machines that kept her alien physiology in motion. The rise and fall of Starfire's chest ticked like a metronome. In. Pause. Out. Pause. It never varied, never wavered. It was efficient, stark, and functional. Everything Starfire was not. Raven knew for certain that this masquerade of life would repulse the golden girl, were she aware of it. 

The sorceress sat statuesque in her wheelchair. Her hospital gown crinkled as her breathing fell in tune with Starfire's. She longed for freedom, or even for the simple comfort of her Azarian vestments, but Doctor Brown and the physicians of S.T.A.R. Labs had refused to discharge her. They did not understand, nor trust, the magic behind her healing trance. She felt healthy and whole, but significantly drained. Even her psychic defenses felt weatherworn. But that wasn't a problem in this room.

She waited. She watched. Her third ear strained for any stirrings behind Starfire's closed eyes. The mob of emotions throughout the building formed a background din, but inside Starfire, it remained a vacuous blank.

Raven bowed her head. Her lips moved with wordless prayer. When she finished, she leaned forward and rested her hand on Starfire's. Her eyes stung as she ran her fingers across the clammy, sallow skin of her friend's arm.

"I hope I didn't choose wrong," she whispered to Starfire.

Her hyper-attuned empathy cringed at a screech of emotion approaching the door from its opposite side. She hastily pushed away from Starfire's bed and shored up her weary psychic battlements before Beast Boy pushed into the room.

A heavy device made Beast Boy's arms quiver. He staggered to Starfire's bedside and hefted the device onto the table. "Holy hernias," he wheezed, and leaned heavily on the device. "Maybe these eggheads should design wheels into gizmos like this."

Raven flinched at the tempest behind Beast Boy's panting smile. She inched her chair further away, and said, "Maybe we could have done this in a room that already had—"

"No way." Beast Boy straightened at once. "We do this with everybody."

Her third eye shied from Starfire's body. "It's not like she can hear us," Raven pointed out with feigned indifference.

Something feral sparked in Beast Boy's eyes. For a split instant, Raven thought she saw his pupils elongate into slits. Then he blinked, and the instant passed. "With everybody," he said firmly.

Without further protest from Raven, he pressed a button on the device. The air above it shimmered until it hardened into a flat image of Cyborg's face. The hologram looked little better than a crude animation. Its eye blinked at uniform intervals, the only moment of its otherwise plastic face.

"Vic?" Beast Boy asked hesitantly.

The hologram's mouth moved mechanically in time with Cyborg's voice. "_Right here, Salad Head. Sort of, anyway. I can hear you, but I can't see you. Looks like the wireless connection to my core consciousness is working okay._"

Raven stared through Cyborg's hologram with a mixture of awe and revulsion. The idea of being separated from one's body hardly fazed a girl who could astral-project, but seeing it done with technology sent a shiver up her spine. "What's it like?" she asked.

"_Creepy as hell. Like being in a sensory deprivation tank with a walkie-talkie jammed in your brain,_" groused Cyborg.

Beast Boy offered a token chuckle before they lapsed into silence. Raven preoccupied her gaze with Starfire so she wouldn't have to meet Beast Boy's questioning stare. Cyborg couldn't look anywhere. His animation flickered hologrammatically. After a minute that lasted an hour, Beast Boy said, "So…now what?"

"We have no home, half a city, and less than half of our team," Raven noted. "And the half that is here…" She glanced from the faux Cyborg before her to the comatose Starfire behind her.

"_What about Tek?_" Cyborg asked.

"She hasn't answered her communicator yet," Raven said. "S.T.A.R. Labs promised to send someone to check on her as soon as they can secure a boat or a helicopter. Everything's been commandeered for the city's rescue efforts."

Cyborg paused before asking the question none of them wanted to speak. "_What about Robin?_"

Beast Boy's chin dipped to his chest. Raven felt stirrings of sympathy for him, which she promptly quashed. "No one's seen him in three days. He left no trail, and I can't locate him telepathically…not that I'm able to give it my best effort," she said. _And not that I would, anyway_, she did not add.

Cyborg's hologram blinked on while he thought. Then he said, "_How about our second stringers_?"

Ticking his fingers in a running count, Beast Boy said, "Hotspot's in Africa, Speedy's stuck with Green Arrow, and Wildebeest and Aqualad aren't answering."

Reluctantly, Cyborg said, "_Superboy?_"

"He ducked out a day ago," Beast Boy said. "I sorta asked him, but he said he was holding out for the Justice League. Said it was a 'family' thing."

They lapsed into silence, squirming, wishing, waiting, hoping that someone else would speak first. Starfire's life support equipment pipped unceasingly. Raven's wheelchair squeaked as she shifted. Cyborg's hologram buzzed quietly. Time fled from the room, leaving them stranded in the unbearable moment.

When he could take it no longer, Beast Boy spoke. His voice croaked, hoarse and foul, as though he resented the very thought passing his lips. "Are we still the Teen Titans?" he asked.

His question echoed in Raven's empty face. Cyborg's hologram remained plastic and passive. His voice was everything but. "_I don't know, Gar,_" he admitted.

The rasp of Starfire's respirator filled their sullen silence.

* * *

A dark motel room two hundred miles outside of Jump City rattled with agony. Dust swam in the cracks of light that seeped through its curtains. The air stirred with muffled screams, shivering as the room's occupant slowly died. 

The occupant lay strapped to his wrought iron bed by a pair of handcuffs he had looped through the bars. Filth, blood, and vomit twisted in the sheets beneath him as he writhed naked, sobbing and screaming into the handkerchief he had tied in his mouth. His bare scalp bore days' worth of stubble. Tears cut through the sweat crusting his face.

Pain wracked every nerve in his body as his humanity took back what an alien parasite had corrupted. For almost three days, he lay in this room—paid for in cash, in advance, with a hefty tip to ensure no disturbances or questions—while his body rebuilt itself.

His gag slipped free. He howled, unable to think, unable to move. The bed groaned and shrieked with his convulsions. He vomited nothing, just dry heaves, and then screamed again. And again. And again.

For the last year, two identities had warred for his soul: one of them, stoic, baleful, focus, and determined; the other, kind, gentle, and afraid. Now both identities burned away in the crucible of his body. Whatever survived would be scarred, but strong.

If anything survived at all.

* * *


	40. Epilogue II

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Teen Titans  
Avatar 

_By Cyberwraith9_

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Epilogue II_

A wisp of a blonde slouched on her bar stool in a rural diner. Her sullen features nearly sank into the slice of apple pie plated on the countertop before her. She stared through the pastry with dead eyes the color of a cold morning sky.

Her waitress wandered by with a steaming pot of coffee. She offered the blonde a wan smile as she refilled the mug next to the pie. The blonde continued to stare as though veiled from the world around her. Her waitress shook her head and clucked softly as she wandered away. No creature, thought the waitress, so ever look so lost.

The blonde poked at her pie with a fork that had yet to reach her lips. Her pie suffered her listlessness as it fell into an unrecognizable mess of filling and crust. Though her stomach growled, the blonde couldn't find the effort to lift even a piece of her pie mound. Hunger and desire just could not connect with her leaden arm.

A fat, hot drop splashed on her plate. She looked down as another drop struck the muddy porcelain. Then another. And another. Her food became blurred. She pushed her plate away and planted her face in her folded arms on the countertop. The hot droplets tickled her face and arms.

She closed her eyes. A face loomed behind her eyelids, green in complexion and shamed in expression. He spoke without speaking: _"I want you to go, and I never, ever want to see you again."_

A dragon's roar deafened her mind.

Her shoulders shook with stifled sobs. She bit back her voice and crushed her eyes, hoping to dam her tears before they consumed her again. The pity of the diner's patrons scorched the back of her head. Humiliated, she bowed her face, sucked in a breath, and then straightened. With as much dignity as she could muster, she mopped her tears with the back of her hand, left a pocketful of bills on the counter, and walked out of the diner.

An old road stretched before her in opposite directions. One direction led into the sunset, the other, into the coming night. She didn't know which way to go.

Unbeknownst to the blonde, a single eye watched her indecision with rapt delight.

* * *

The lair stood empty, as it had for over a week. Its carpet of broken chains rusted in peace. Cogs dislodged from its walls lay buried in craters punched through the concrete floor. The air inside hung stale, glittering in the long shaft of light that trickled through a hole in the ceiling. 

Then he entered. He slid down a rope fed through the shaft of light, and landed nimbly on the uneven floor. Chestnut hair fell into his face. He swept it back and surveyed the dead lair.

He circled the cavernous chamber. Chains and concrete crunched underfoot, unnoticed in his search. So, too, did he ignore the dead screens hanging from the wall high above, and the warped throne lying far from its dais. Only when he found a small, curved, dented piece of metal on the floor did he pause. The two-toned metal sprouted from chains, half-buried. He plucked it and held it at arm's length. It was a mask, beaten and broken as it was, and one he knew well.

"Your death won't go unanswered," the young man promised the mask. "I will find whoever did this to you, and I swear that they will beg me for a quick death before I'm done with them."

Curiosity overcame him. He held the mask to his face, and saw as its former owner had seen. His vision was narrowed to a single eye. Focused. So too would he now see.

His voice reverberated from the mask's grille. "I promise you, your legacy will continue. And your murderers will be ravaged in my righteousness. This I vow, father."

* * *

The creature from the stars nestled into its new home, content. 

It had been ejected. Evicted. Thrust out in a wave of fire. Forced into the world at large, exposed, where the promise of a slow and painful death awaited.

But then it had been found. Then it had been saved.

Its old host had fought it. Such a fight, the creature had never before encountered. Resistance. Hesitation. Reluctance. Indecision. These weaknesses had plagued their time together.

And just when they had finally become one, when they had realized their true potential, that bitch troq separated them, leaving both halves to perish.

But then it had been found. Then it had been saved.

Now it thrived.

Its new host understood. Its new host knew the power of rage. Of righteousness. They bonded now, growing stronger by the second. Where its old host wavered, its new host embraced. Together, they would realize true greatness.

The creature from the stars nestled into its new avatar. It grew. It took. It gave.

It thrived.

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The End**


End file.
